Issues with Campaign Guide NPC - minor SPOILERS for players

[brightgoat]

I tried to enter Torrent into the character builder to make it easier to level her up as the party increases in level. Found a few issues. I suppose you could hand wave some of these away by saying that she's not a PC, but an NPC. But if she's going to be around for a while, it would be easier if she were a legal character.

* No feats are listed - She should have three by 2nd level.
* She should speak an additional language.
* As a human, she have an additional at will power.
* She should have a lvl 2 Utility Power.
* Her stats are non-standard according to the point buy system. (Which is fine, but bears noting).
* Athletics is not a Cleric Skill, and as a human, she should have training in an additional skill.
* I calculate HP of 35 instead of 37 (including Toughness feat choice)
* I calculate 17 will save (including base 11, +2 for being cleric, +3 wisdom, + 1 human)
* I calculate AC of 17, (base 11 +6 Chainmail - no bonus for ability score since Chainmail is heavy armor)
* I get a +5 to hit for the Battleaxe (+2 Str, +2 Prof, +1 level) and 1d10+2 damage (1d10 +3 if two handed)
* No rituals are listed
* For turn undead, I calculate a +4 vs will with 1d10+3 radiant damage
* For the non-standard powers, it would be helpful to see how the attack and damage is calculated when we level her up.

I can obviously fix all this stuff myself, but thought it would be helpful in case any of this was not intentional.

 

[Morrus]

She's essentially a "monster" not a PC. We decided to do it that way to make it very easy for the DM to run her and to take advantage of the very streamlined monster stat blocks that 4E introduced.

I guess you could choose to develop her as a full PC, but, honestly, I don't think it's worth the effort unless you want a player to run her full time.

We're considering a free web-enhancement with her as a full PC properly worked out, but I'm not convinced DMs will want to run the full PC rather than the streamlined version available as a "monster" stat block (which obeys different rules to PC generation anyway). Especially since she'll be changing at every level.

I realise a lot of DMs ar eused to doing that in previous editions; but we wanted to take advantage of the advantages of 4E, and the monster stats are - in my opinion, at least - the biggest contribution 4E has to the D&D game. It certainly makes it easier for me to run combats!

 

[Marius Delphus]

She's not a PC; she's an NPC.

That said, if you'd rather build Torrent as a battleaxe-wielding water cleric PC, go right ahead.

 

[Morrus]

Also, don't worry about having to level her up as the party levels up. We'll be providing new versions of her in each adventure to ensure she can fulfill her role - which is, essentially, support and information. They'll come as 1-page sheets which you can use as the DM or hand to a player.

 

[brightgoat]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply. Knowing that you're going to include a leveled up version each time helps a lot. I think I'll take your advice and go the "Monster" way.

 

[Walker N. Waistz]

Just as a side-note, in my 4E group's WotBS game, we made her as Water Genasi from the FR Player's Guide (stripped the chrome off but let her have all the abilities) and built her as a Battleaxe-wielding Strength Cleric with the Resistance feat from the Player's Guide as a bonsu feat. And the person playing her is having a blast.

In general, we are using Genasi in the game as humans descended from one of the four elemental Primordials (Dragon, Eagle, Kraken, Worm) and it really keeps the creation myth front and center in everybody's minds, and makes the world's uniqueness that much more substantial.

 

[kumagroo]

Torrent's Refreshing Wave power is described as Close Burst 3, but has the blast symbol before it. I assume the text is correct, but I wanted to make sure, since I didn't know if, for flavor purposes, it's supposed to a wave lashing out in one direction.

Also, how important is Torrent to the story? Are there later plot elements that tie to her specifically? Should I add her to the party if I have a group of five? I think she's a cool NPC but I'm awful at RPing the personality of party members while managing the rest of the campaign.

Ordered my subscription two days ago! Looking forward to seeing adventure one, though I won't request a gif file unless it's going to be later than June 12th.

 

[amethal]

Also, how important is Torrent to the story? Are there later plot elements that tie to her specifically? Should I add her to the party if I have a group of five? I think she's a cool NPC but I'm awful at RPing the personality of party members while managing the rest of the campaign.

If its anything like the 3.5 version (and I'm sure it is) then Torrent is not important at all.

Torrent didn't even make an appearance in my campaign, and it was a complete non issue.

Somebody needs to give the PCs their mission in the first adventure, but when I ran it one of the PCs was a member of the resistance, who Torrent had asked to attend the meeting in her stead and brief the others. I gave him all the information to pass on to the rest.

The only other time it even came up was when they reached Seaquen. At that point I told the resistance PC that Torrent had mentioned an old mentor of hers lived in town (a water loving druid called Lee), and that she had suggested they could look him up if they felt like it. With hindsight I should have mentioned Lee as part of the first adventure briefing.

 

[Zinovia]

I got rid of Torrent and replaced her with an NPC that was not intended to travel with the group - she's the daughter of the Doge. I added a Doge to Gate Pass because they wear funny hats.

As for Lee Sidoneth, I made him the watersoul genasi mentor of the party's genasi swordmage. The swordmage had studied at the Lyceum, and hung out a lot with Lee. It doesn't matter if genasi make good druids by the rules - I wanted that race both to be the same as the swordmage and for the water affinity.

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.

Furthermore, when I began my game, I made some major decisions about who the Ragesians were (tieflings), and what the surrounding areas were like. I've added new cities, changed dozens of names, and re-created maps. The official conversion went a different (but equally valid) direction with that, sticking with orcs and half-orcs in Ragesia. I'm concerned that between the changes I have wrought to it, and the issue of fitting some square pegs into round 4E holes in the conversion process, that I may end up spending just as much time reconverting the conversion as I was in going from the 3.5 version to 4E.

That may also turn out to not be the case. What I will most likely do is see what people think of the earlier modules, and then buy whichever one we're up to when the official conversion comes out and see if it saves me time or not. I think one of the biggest benefits is that from what I've heard, some additional encounters and side plots have been added to flesh out the story and add some needed experience to keep people at the right levels. That could well be worth it right there.

In any case, my player group seems to be enjoying WotBS so far (we're traveling between the Fire Forest and Seaquen now), and I definitely recommend it. It's great that it's being converted over to 4E. For people new to the saga, you won't have made sweeping changes to the background the way I have done, so the conversion will definitely work better for you.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Torrent's Refreshing Wave power is described as Close Burst 3, but has the blast symbol before it. I assume the text is correct, but I wanted to make sure, since I didn't know if, for flavor purposes, it's supposed to a wave lashing out in one direction.

The text is correct, and so's the icon; that's the "Close" symbol, as opposed to the "Area" symbol, which is the six-arrow thingy. (Check out the Inquisitor on page 18 for an example.)

[EDIT] I was working on an icon scheme inspired by the "Power Cards" threads that would have differentiated between Close Burst and Close Blast, but I discarded it. The only remnants of that scheme are the "arrow" Ranged icon I'm using (no bow) and the "right pointing triangle" icon I'm using for constant/untargeted/whatever abilities, where WOTC isn't putting an icon at all (something that irked me enough to change). I left everything else pretty much the same, except I redrew the icons themselves and tilted the "sword" Melee icon 45 degrees.[/EDIT]

Looking forward to seeing adventure one, though I won't request a gif file unless it's going to be later than June 12th.

I certainly want to have it done by May 31st. Wish me luck!