Scholar & Brutalman
First Post
WotC_Greg has a big post up describing all his playtesting. As usual I'll remove this if Greg asks:
WotC_GregB, 11/8/2007 6:02:10 PM
It’s been an interesting and busy week. Scheduled tasks here at wizards seem to often fluctuate, and I was at the center of one of those fluctuations this week. I was supposed to be editing an unannounced star wars miniatures set, but instead I’m now writing the tactics entries for the monster manual.
I’m quite happy for the opportunity to get to do some writing, and I’ve been helping my fellow editors develop the monster stat block format, so I’ve already had some hand in the book. Of course, the monster manual is quite large and I have only two weeks, so Rich Baker is working on the latter half of the book. So far I’m up to demons.
Monster strategies are much more intuitive in 4th edition. The tactics sections certainly help, but I think it’s also quite simple to study the stat block for a few moments and see intuitively what the monster should be doing. The addition of monster “roles” is one of the biggest helps for how to run a monster.
Nonetheless, there are still some monsters, such as the beholder, that have enormous tactics blocks because they just have so much cool stuff they can do.
I guess I’ll spend some time writing about the various games I’m in:
Monday Lunchtime Playtest Game
We all leveled our characters up from 1 to 14 (made easier by my beautiful excel sheet! ...even if no one else uses it ) I was loving my 14 dwarven paladin. I’m a tank. A rock. I laughed in the face of three opponents as they feebly tried to hit my armor class. I blocked one of the passageways from a pair of giants and several other enemies as my companions did strikes and the like. I may not dish out the damage like them, but there’s definite satisfaction that comes with being able to stand up to many enemies round after round. Most of the powers I chose were things to help allies, which I didn’t end up using because I was doing a good job at defense. A few helped augment my own abilities though, and it saved me a couple brutal hits. Peter talks a little more about it here.
(Description of non-4e Star Trek game elided - S&B)
Tuesday Night Prophecy of the Priestess Campaign
My 4E campaign is continuing nicely. I recently posted a playtest report from a couple weeks ago and will be putting up another one shortly in an attempt to catch up with the current session (I think the reports are about 3 weeks behind).
Basically, the highlight of the session was the PCs being the victims of a hit and run by a dragon. I proved with certitude that dragons can indeed be lurkers. I’ll save the full explanation for a playtest report which I will try and have up on my gleemax blog next week.
Oh, and I almost killed Logan’s character. What can I say, strikers should know better than to be the first to run straight into a pack of wolves.
Wednesday Night Iomandra Campaign
This was the second session of Chris Perkins’ campaign and I’m having a blast. It’s just the right mix of intrigue, plot, and action. I’m very pleased with his incorporation of backgrounds and stories into the overall plot. He devised a 28-page campaign packet from which we could choose or derive backgrounds. I created a mixture of what he provided with some of my own hooks and elements. This is a different approach than my campaign, where I used the Herobuilder’s Guidebook table for creating character background and then worked individually with each player to develop a history. Both ways work very well to create an intricate tapestry of plot with subtlety and nuances.
As for the actual events in the sessions—there’s a lot to cover. The highlight yesterday, for me, was breaking into a wizardess’ room and finding a glass marble thing that I suspected was magic. I didn’t think I had any way of activating it, (I’m a tiefling rogue and didn’t have any interest in such things) but I gave it a try anyway and with a combined roll and int modifier, managed to get 20. To my horror, the little bead exploded into an electrical dragon. I had no idea what this was (that includes my character and me), so I rolled initiative, scored high, and got the heck out of there. One of the room’s occupants then returned and found me there, talking through the door to the dragon... It went something like this:
Me: “Hey dragon...are you...are you in there?”
Chris: You hear crackling energy. Zzzthhshhhzzzchhhh.
Me: “Um hm. Well...dragon, can you understand me? Roar once if you can understand me.”
Chris: Someone taps you on the shoulder and asks, “Who are you talking to?” You turn to find the one-armed elf (one of the cabin’s two occupants).”
Me: “Oh hey—hi. Um, wow, so there’s a dragon in your room.”
Chris: “A...dragon?”
Me: *guilty expression* “Well, I was sort of... well... looking around. And I find this glass bead and it became a dragon.”
Chris: “Did it?” He looks at the door skeptically. “Can I look?”
Me: “I...I don’t think that’s a good idea. I know, why don’t you go get my uncle [the inn proprietor] and I’ll wait here and make sure nothing happens.”
Chris: “Why don’t I wait here and you go get him?”
Me: “Or I could do that, I s’pose.” I go down the hall toward the deck. [Note that the inn is actually part of a ship and the common room is below deck.] I look back when I get outside.
Chris: He’s watching you.
Me: I go down toward the stairs and look back.
Chris: He’s come out and is still watching you.
Me: Crap. Okay, well I go down the stairs. Is there any way off the boat from below deck?
Chris: Nope.
Me: Hmm.
I then proceeded to find an alternate way back to the upper deck, being all sneaky. Chris had me make a skill check, but I managed to avoid the elf’s gaze and was able to slip over the side of the ship into the water. I then proceeded to avoid the ship (my home) like the plague for the rest of the day.
The other highlight of the session involved my near-death. I suppose arguably it was my second near-death experience of the session. Anyway, I was literally one role away from dying, and I had roughly a 50% chance of survival. In third-edition speak, this was about the equivalent of being at -9. Fortunately, my cleric ally managed to get over to me in time, but it was close. The whole fight was close. I imagine someone else will go into details in another blog. I’ll see if I can find the link. For now, work is over and I’m outta here.
