"Role vs. Roll: Goblins" up

[Boarstorm]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drrr/20080623a

Three words: Alchemical Mutant Rampage.

 

[Shroomy]

Its another impressive article from e-Dragon; I really liked the alchemy angle. My only wish was that they included some stats for the main bad guys so you could really run this from an outline without a lot of major prop.

 

[Boarstorm]

Yeah, it was a good article, but it really didn't have quite the ... utility ... of the others that have been released so far.

To me, anyway.

 

[Shroomy]

True, its more a springboard for DMs, though it does include a lot of cool ideas.

 

[GorTeX]

the skill challenges looked bland to me.

basically..use perception until you succeed, then you can use other skills...(of course, you are looking for things, but no other options than DC20 perception until you succeed one...)

 

[Mengu]

I'm actually impressed with most of the ideas here. It is an example of what we can do as a GM to tailor creatures to our adventures. If I wanted the same adventure, except it was happening in some winterland with orcs lead by an ice shaman, I could easily convert this to a level 5-6 adventure, using the similar hooks. I'm rather glad to have access to this material for free at the moment.

 

[SSquirrel]

Off to read the article. Your 3 word description has me picturing Gremlins 2 tho

 

[Shroomy]

I like the alchemical juggernaut ability, it should make for an interesting end to the encounter. I also liked the sidebar for tweaking existing monsters or filing off the serial numbers; I know its an old DM trick, but its nice that 4e is giving it some relatively substantial support, here and in the DMG.

 

[Saeviomagy]

the skill challenges looked bland to me.

basically..use perception until you succeed, then you can use other skills...(of course, you are looking for things, but no other options than DC20 perception until you succeed one...)

Yeah, the mechanic of "this skill does NOT work in this skill challenge until this other one does" seems to be kind of contrary to the entire idea of skill challenges. It's back to the bad old days of "only the guy with a good search skill does anything here", but now it has "oh, but the guys with bad search skills ALSO have to search, and if 2 of them fail, the guy with the good skill doesn't even get to try" added.

I'd have to say that some of those scenes simply aren't appropriate for a skill challenge - "lets look around" shouldn't be something that you can fail just because the first couple of people didn't see something.

 

[Rechan]

I'm not sure who or what's supposed to get the Alchemical Juggernaut ability.

The article seems to be too much crammed in too little a space.