Blood Road: New Dungeon Article

[Sammael]

Wow, I didn't even notice Streetwise! Cool, I can now say that 4E will incorporate one of my oldest house rules. I presume it will be an amalgamation of Knowledge (Local) and Gather Information.

 

[senna]

I doubt Vampire Lords are a template. I suspect they'll be one of several vampire types in MM1, allowing several different levels of characters to fight vampires.

But they mention that the two vampire lords have class levels, Bryn has levels in rogue and Savasty has levels in warlock, what can make you think that vampire is a monster and that vampire lord is a template.

 

[exile]

I'm really liking the information about how each NPCs responds to various types of social interaction. I like the story presented here, and I really dig the artwork. I'm up in the air about how I feel about the absence of stats. I guess their absence makes it more a preview of 4E than it would be with 3.5 stats, plus I kind of enjoy crunching my own numbers anyway.

Chad

 

[JoelF]

I liked the 4E preview aspects mentioned by other posters, but hope this isn't a regular feature of Dungeon - I want full adventures, not an adventure hook with NPC bios and tactics - I want the maps, stats, minions, etc. also. If I'm going to use published material, I want it to save me the work of doing all that on my own, and I can tweak it as desired.

 

[Sammael]

Stats? Here's my attempt at some stats (somewhat in line with Mearls' makeover articles and what we know of 4E):

Vampire Lord (Template)

This template can be applied to any living humanoid creature.

Type: The type changes to Elite Undead
Level: Increase level by 2
Speed: Gains climb speed equal to land speed
Defenses: Increase all defenses by +2
Attacks: Gains bite attack (1d6 base damage for medium vampire lords, modified by size; heals 5 hp per successful bite attack); increase base attack by +2
Skills: Gains Focus in the following skills: Deception, Initiative, Insight, Perception, Persuasion, and Stealth

Blood pool: Vampire lord can expend his blood pool as an immediate action for one of the following benefits:

(1) Gain another use of one of his per encounter abilities
(2) Resist Frenzy
(3) Heal 5 HP/level
(4) Ignore one vulnerability for one round

Vampire lord can refresh his blood pool by performing a coup de grace with his bite attack.

Frenzy: At half hp, vampire lord descends into a bloodlust-induced frenzy; he can only attack with his bite and cannot use any special abilities until the end of the encounter. Vampire lord may expend his blood pool to prevent frenzy. While in frenzy, vampire lord gains a bonus equal to 1/2 his level to attack and damage rolls, and his speed increases by 4 squares.

Gaseous form: Immediate action; per encounter; vampire lord also reverts to gaseous form automatically if reduced to 0 hp.

Special Abilities:
Charming gaze: Immediate action; target: living humanoid; unlimited uses; Level + Cha modifier vs. target Will defense; target attitude towards vampire becomes friendly
Dominating gaze: Standard action; target: living humanoid; per encounter; Level + Cha modifier vs. target Will defense; vampire controls target's actions
Alternate form, lesser: Swift action; bat or wolf; unlimited uses
Alternate form, greate: Standard action; dire bat or dire wolf; per encounter

Vulnerabilities:

(1) Garlic causes the vampire lord to become nauseated
(2) Any believer with a holy symbol of his faith can try to turn the vampire as a cleric of his level
(3) Direct exposure to sunlight causes the vampire lord to lose 5 hp/level per round of exposure.

EDIT: And yes, if it's not immediately obvious, I ripped some of those things from WoD - particularly the frenzy and blood pool (which is, I think, similar to how Action Points are going to work in 4E).

 

[Dave Turner]

Very nice, Sammael.

 

[Shroomy]

I liked the 4E preview aspects mentioned by other posters, but hope this isn't a regular feature of Dungeon - I want full adventures, not an adventure hook with NPC bios and tactics - I want the maps, stats, minions, etc. also. If I'm going to use published material, I want it to save me the work of doing all that on my own, and I can tweak it as desired.

This seems to be a column called "Roll vs. Role," not an adventure. I read it and it seems to me to be a cross between a 4e preview and a Campaign Workbook article. It was nice to have all that art for a relatively short article.

 

[WayneLigon]

Very nice little encounter. I'll certainly be using that at some point.

 

[Drammattex]

I like what I'm reading.

Mostly, I like it because it looks like my adventure notes. Once again, 4e seems to be moving towards my homebrew; this makes me happy.

The thing about this is, each character and the character's motives are outlined, as well as what their possible responses would be. Those are the mechanics: if players do this, effect x occurs, if players do that, effect y occurs. Et cetera.

And there's nothing stopping the players from whipping out their blades and trashing the whole bloody lot of them. It's not the cool story way to go, but the fact that the cool story option is THERE is a marked improvement, IMO. Makes me feel as though D&D is getting something back that it lost between 2e and 3e.

If we can have awesome storytelling AND awesome tactical combat, I'll be very pleased.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the Streetwise skill is just a merge of what you know of a certain place (Knowledge Local) with what you can find out at the moment (Gather Info).

It stems however from a debatable use of KN(Local), which in some books is treated as a collection of skills, each for a separate region or city, and in other books is treated as 1 only skill. The latter doesn't make sense as a knowledge skill IMHO, since it cannot be that a character is knowledged in every possible town he comes across including places he's never been yet. So to me Streetwise is more like saying "forget there was ever a KN(Local) skill", you are just good at finding out something about any place you want (aka Gather Info in the first place).