On the tabletop RPG front, in an effort to get through a mountain of game products I’ve been getting already this spring, I’m doing a DOUBLE REVIEW of two Pathfinder products by Open Design.  The folks that bring you Kobold Quarterly have a monster manual for their Zobeck setting called the Midgard Bestiary (Pathfinder RPG Edition).  I reviewed a similar offering for the DragonAGE system, but this new bestiary is twice as big, with tons of new monsters.  I also have a review of a solo adventure in the Party of One series called Alosar Emanli & the Creatures from the Fallen Star.

For all the details on these two Pathfinder supplements, please click the link below and head over to EN World to check out the double review in full:

Double Review: Midgard Bestiary (Pathfinder RPG Edition) & Party of One: Alosar Emanli by Open Design

Chances are good that I’ll be doing a few more of these double reviews as the summer presses on toward GenCon 2012.  There’s a lot of RPG games and gaming products coming out right now, and I’ll try and review as much of it as I can in the coming weeks!

Assuming I’m not busy fighting Diablo, of course…

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

I sure hope that's a Web Spell...

In less than 10 days, many of us will find out that of-so-important truth about D&D Next.

And as we count down the final days to the Open Playtest, Mike Mearls and the WotC Design Team continue to give us new ideas and concepts for what the main basic character classes will be like in the new edition, it seems the Core Rules will be very focused on making the four iconic classes – Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard – the best they can be.

Last week, Mike Mearls’ Legend & Lore articles took a look at the Rogue Design Goals as it had previously with the Fighter and Cleric classes for D&D Next.  But in an interesting shift, today’s article was entitled Balancing Wizards in D&D , suggesting that of all the classes, the iconic Wizard is the one character that deserves, if not requires, some special handling in the new edition.

And it begs the question: Can the Wizard ever really be balanced in Dungeons & Dragons?

Backstab, Back Attack, and More!

For the most part, I think what I read in Rogue Design Goals made a lot of sense to me.  Discussing how many and wide ranging in skills the Rogue character class is (Rogues are skilled), and how they are so skilled that only the most challenging of circumstances give them pause (The rogue makes the routine look trivial) were spot on.  In mythological and fantasy literature, Rogue characters are a cocky and smug bunch of chaps, very sure of their skills and cunning, as the characters from Mr. Gygax’s  inspirational reading list in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide tend to suggest.  Grey Mouser, Jhary-a-Conel, and even young Conan were some of the founding icons for the design of the early Rogue class (AD&D called it a Thief), and provided the impetus for what the Rogue class would become in successive editions.

And it’s equally important to note that while the powers of the Rogue are based upon non-magical sources (The rogue exists in a world of myth, fantasy, and legend), they can achieve a legendary status through their exploits (The rogue makes the routine look trivial), which again feels right both from a literary perspective and from the class structure of previous editions.  But must admit that I am quite curious how D&D Next plans to play that part of the class out, as described in the Legend & Lore article:

Traditionally, the mechanics of D&D have reflected better training by increasing the chance of success. That doesn’t quite capture the rogue’s level of talent. The rogue isn’t just more likely to succeed. Instead, he or she takes success for granted in most cases. It’s only when facing a real challenge that the rogue must worry about the outcome.

Are Rogues going to be so highly skilled at low levels that they can accomplish most of their abilities without worrying about failure?  Or is this a suggestion that the Rogue will only be required to roll a skill check when faced with very powerful adversaries?  Either way, it is different than preceding editions, but in keeping with literary inspirations.

However, where I did have a bit of disagreement with the vision for the Rogue class was in suggesting that they could not stand up to opponents in a fair fight:

The rogue prefers an indirect approach to a fight. A rogue thrives on tricks and misdirection. If a rogue can’t attack from behind or with some other key advantage, he or she might be better off withdrawing or remaining out of sight until the opportunity for a surprise attack presents itself.

If a rogue can surprise an opponent with an attack, that attack might be overwhelmingly powerful. If a rogue is cornered and forced to fight fair, he or she is at a huge disadvantage. In such a situation, most rogues would choose to run away rather than fight.

Most literary sources, including those which founded the class line, tend to portray the Rogue as being warriors in their own right, but with a different fighting style which includes dirty in-fighting tricks and a general lack of battling “honorably”.  When attacking from stealth, they are even more deadly than a warrior, but otherwise fantasy literature tends to make little distinction between a common mercenary, a soldier, and a rogue.  In fact, I would daresay that it is the Assassin that fits this last character concept better than a Rogue, requiring stealth and subterfuge to make their deadly attacks and being far less capable when they don’t have the advantage of surprise.

I certainly hope the Design Team does not go too far and make the Rogue too much like an Assassin.  I’d tend to want to see a Rogue much more dangerous when cornered, like the proverbial rat, for that’s when he’s liable to make his most cunning and deadly attacks!

Swords Versus Sorcery

Solving the Fighter-Linear-Wizard-Quadratic equation has only ever been done successfully once – in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition.  The AEUD template which nearly all classes were built on – before Essentials and Psionics came out anyways – ensured an even playing field for all core 4E classes.  While playing through all the previous editions of the game, I can’t begin to count the number of times I witnessed how the Wizard grew from a nearly useless weakling to become comicbook-esque superhero, outshining nearly every other member of his or her adventuring party.  They might not be Gandalf or Merlin, but they sure as heck made the rest of the characters in their party second-class adventurers compared to them.

I’ll admit I chuckled out loud a little bit when Mr. Mearls claimed in the opening of the Balancing Wizards in D&D article that “many gaming groups simply don’t see the problem”.  My immediate thought in response was “that’s because those groups are turning a blind eye to the issue.”  The problem was always there, inherent to how all editions prior to 4E handled increasing numbers of spell slots and the relentless growth in power for all spells, regardless of the spell’s level.  No matter how you want to look at it, a 10th level Wizard under any old edition delivered a 3rd Level fireball or a lightning bolt spell with an average of 35 hit points to a whole pack of monsters, automatically hitting, and instantly killing any of 4 Hit Dice or less, and even those monsters of 5 to 8 Hit Dice – if they fail their save!  All that while the fighter and rogue hack away at a single monster during a round, possibly missing with their swings and doing a mere fraction of the damage.  Just think, if the melee classes are lucky, they just might kill a critter once in a while!

I’m sorry, but to me that’s always going to be a major balance problem between classes in any game system, even if there are some D&D players and Dungeon Masters that want to pretend it’s not.

But I have to say that some of the ideas Mr. Mearls puts out there for balancing the Wizard in D&D Next really do intrigue me.  Keeping spell slots low while offering at-will cantrips with both utility and attack capabilities seems like the start of a decent solution (Cantrips as At-Will Magic / Reducing Total Spell Slots), as well as making sure that low level spells don’t become overwhelming engines of destruction (Spells Don’t Automatically Scale).  And making it possible for spells to be interrupted by attacks (Spellcasting Is Dangerous) again, and offers another reason for a Wizard to respectfully request combat aide from the melee classes to ensure their powerful spells can be cast – something that 3rd/3.5 Edition removed from old D&D play with the Concentration Skill and 4E by making spells instantaneous.

Of course, all these changes to create balance might just earn the ire of the die-hard D&D Wizard fans, who have seen the class grow more and more omnipotent from OD&D through 3.5 edition.  D&D 4E designers came under major criticism from some fans for balancing the Wizard with AEUD and limiting spell options, and for changing the class role from the battlefield devastator, as it was previously, to a battlefield tactician (ie. Controller).  Making many of the Wizard utility spells into Rituals didn’t help, particularly when those spells used to be castable at any time and in one round or less.

One has to wonder if weaving all these balance-centric class features into the core class isn’t courting the same reaction 4E received from these older edition D&D Wizard fans!

Only a short 10 days remain before the nature of the new D&D Next Wizard is finally revealed, as well as all the other core classes.  I look forward to seeing the Open Playtest materials myself, and seeing if all this build-up of anticipation is worth the wait – or if it’s merely been hype for selling a new edition to a gaming community with plenty of version of D&D already available to play to their hearts’ content.

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

However, this week as promised, I won’t be reviewing a D&D 4E product, or even a Pathfinder product.  But in honor of the incredibly successful opening weekend of The Avengers Movie, I am taking a look at the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game by Margaret Weis Productions.  For those familiar with Ms. Weis, she was co-creator of the Dragonlance D&D setting, as well as many other modules, Dragon Magazine articles, and series of novels.  Her company has developed an RPG engine called the Cortex System, which has been used in the Battlestar Glalactica RPG, the Serenity RPG, and other games based upon television series such as Smallville, Supernatural, and Leverage.  A derivation called Cortex Plus was used with this new superhero RPG, offering a new innovation to standard roleplaying game systems.

To check out all the details about this game, please click the link below and head over to EN World to read the review in full:

Review of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game by Margaret Weis Productions

Regretfully, I feel like the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game is only half of a real roleplaying game, lacking a character generation system or resources for gamemasters to create additional adventures on their own.  While the system includes a pre-made adventure and pre-made Marvel characters, without buying additional Events, there is no way for a Watcher (gamemaster) to continue to play the game with his (or her) fellow gamers.

Considering that a friend of mine was able to take the basic rulebook for Champions (published more than 20 years ago), and run several successful campaigns set in the Marvel Universe over the years using only comic books and a few online sources, it makes the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game seem anemic and sad by comparison.  I was definitely hoping for a better showing for a game carrying the Marvel Comics trademark, and although I am a huge fan-boy of all things Marvel, would prefer to pull out my old trusty Champions RPG, and just use it instead of this new partial build of a role-playing game.

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

I’m having what can only be called “case of the Mondays”.  The weekend started great, as it kicked off with a taco potluck on Cinco de Mayo Eve and my Detroit area D&D 4E game.  Over homemade tacos and mai tais (and I’m still not exactly sure what the latter had to do with Cinco de Mayo), my group plowed through two encounters worth of gnolls under my revised version of Moathouse from the Village of Hommelet, and got a bit more exploring done, uncovering clues about the strange cult of the Elder Elemental Eye.  We might have been able to get to a third encounter, but sadly we had to cut things short, as a combination of strong Polynesian-style beverage in the male adventurers, and the loss of an adventuring mommy dealing with angry baby made further explorations impossible.  So the unfolding mysteries of the Moathouse had to await another week…

The weekend continued into awesome with a trip out to a morning matinee of The Avengers Movie with friends.  Seriously, I have no idea how anyone can hate this movie that has ever picked up a Marvel Comic Book – it was pure adrenaline-fueled mountain of Fan-Boy eye-candy!  I have no idea how anyone can hate this movie – although a friend linked me a comment from AICN of a viewer that claimed “the movie had no plot”.    Frankly, I just have to assume that either the commentor has no idea what the definition of “plot” actually is, or maybe they had some sort of intestinal issue that forced them into the bathroom for the middle hour of the movie.  But regardless of a nay-sayers pathetic attempt to draw attention, The Avengers Movie is just amazing, and it broke all kinds of domestic and international records – over 200 million bucks in US tickets alone!  Go see it if you haven’t yet – I plan to go back to see it later this week on the IMAX screen!

And in honor of The Avengers Movie being so amazing, I’ll be reviewing the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game by Margaret Weis Productions this Wednesday over on EN World News.  I figure it’s a fitting product to review in the wake of the blockbuster movie, and I’ll post a link to the review here when it goes live, as always.

Although Sunday was a very calm and restful day, and a lovely ending to the weekend, I found myself still collating my rules for my D&D 4E Homebrew blog on a revised skill system.  I just don’t have enough feedback yet from my playtesters, since we’ve only just hammered out implementing it in my Toledo D&D game, and I don’t feel comfortable yet releasing a new skill system variant for 4E until I get more input from my players.  Hopefully, I’ll have something to post soon – on paper, I think it’s dynamite, but until we run with it for several sessions, I’ll never be sure if there isn’t break in the rules.

So today I thought about blogging about the new Legends & Lore article by Mike Mearls about the Rogue Design Goals, but frankly I’m getting the feeling that I’m obsessing too much about D&D Next.  I ran a graphical “word cloud” program on my Neuroglyph Games site, and it’s hard not to notice which words I’m focusing on the most.  So I decided that it might be best from publishing another Wizard Watch blog for a bit, until I have something really good to say.  Besides, we’ll all have a chance at the public playtesting soon enough, by the end of this month in fact, and then we’ll know a lot more about where all these blogs and articles from the WotC Design Team are leading the D&D Community.

Honestly, all this incessant harping on D&D Next and the way that 4E is coming to what feels like a very pre-mature end has actually inspired me in quite a different way.  I’ve actually started writing my own “generic” role-playing game system, and have been plugging away at it for the past few months now.  I’m finding influences for my game engine from a number of sources, mostly from systems I grew up playing after AD&D introduced me to the RPG genre of games.  These include older editions of RP games such as Champions, Shadowrun, d20/OGL, and D&D 4E.  And I’ve even found myself inspired by a couple of interesting systems I’ve experienced in the various MMOs and computer games I’ve played, like Elder Scrolls series, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Everquest II.  I hope to combine many different elements together to create a fun system capable of handling multiple genres of settings.  In fact, I’m working to create a Science-Fiction Space Opera setting, and a Fantasy Swords & Sorcery Gothic Horror setting to go along with the game engine.  I’ll likely create another website for the system once I get closer to launch…

And speaking of Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls, have you heard that the world of Tamriel is set to become an MMO under its ZeniMax Online Studios division?!  Game Informer has an Elder Scrolls MMO Hub you can go to with a list of various articles about the upcoming ZeniMax release, and they’ve got three articles posted already, including this screenshot from gameplay.  Personally, I’ve loved the Elder Scrolls series since Daggerfall first hit the store shelves, and if the MMO is anything like the recent releases of Oblivion and Skyrim, it’s going to be really hard not to suffer from “Elder-crack” addiction in no time!

So check back Wednesday for my weekly review, and hopefully I’ll have more D&D related stuff to blog about next Monday…

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

No rest for the wicked, right?  Which brings us to today’s review…

I received an interesting product from Fire Mountain Games, an adventure arc designed for evil villains rather than generally good heroes.  Way of the Wicked (Book One: Knot of Thorns) is a Pathfinder adventure arc, and is the first in a series of six installments for a full-fledged evil campaign running from Level 1 to Level 20.

For complete details about this product, please click the link below to head over to EN World for the full review:

Review of Way of the Wicked (Book One: Knot of Thorns) by Fire Mountain Games

While I am not a huge fan of evil campaigns – and in fact, I am rather dubious about running or playing in them – Way of the Wicked (Book One: Knot of Thorns) really makes me reconsider my stern view on the subject, and even consider running a dark campaign again.  It’s design, writing, and attention to detail are very impressive, and I feel quite fortunate to have had the opportunity to review this offering from Fire Mountain Games.

Bottom line: it makes being evil sound like an awful lot of fun!

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

The new L&L this week is taking a stab at discussing Fighter Design Goals in D&D Next, and it seems that the fighter is giving the design team far less problems with class design than the aforementioned “holy roller”.  Fighters have been the focal point for only two articles and blogs prior to this current one: L&L Fighters vs. Wizards from April 2011 and a blog by Robert Schwalb in February 2012 entitled Fighter A-Go-Go.  Although, technically, the blogs started a year ago, the design team has not seemed to have quite the reservations about the class that they showed with the Cleric.  And personally, I find that fact fairly interesting, as both Schwalb and Mearls have come forward as proponents of fighter characters.

In my analysis last week, Wizards Watch: Cleric Class Confusion & Designer Dismay, I mentioned that there was no “class hero” on the design team rooting for the Cleric, but it appears that the Fighter has at least two designers in its corner.  That’s good news for the Fighter Class indeed, but it underscores the need for how important it is to have someone on the team championing the design goals of a class.  Actually, now that I think about it, “Class Champion” might be a better term than “Class Hero” is, but the role is the same.  Every class needs to have at least one designer on the D&D Next Team that is willing to say “I LOVE THIS CLASS!  IT’S ALL I WANT TO PLAY!”.  Otherwise, I fear that some classes will simply end up better designed than others.

And one other point that I find a bit ironic about the two classes, Cleric and Fighter, and how “easy” it is for the D&D Next Team to design them for the new edition.  In many respects, both the Cleric and Fighter started as fairly simple classes to play in original D&D, and while the Cleric did have a spell list to deal with, it was a fairly basic and easy to parse stack of healing and utility spells for the first few levels.  Over the successive editions, both classes grew in complexity, with increased options first from Dragon Magazine articles and Unearthed Arcana during AD&D, and with more options as the successive editions grew more complex.

So which Edition’s Fighter and Cleric is the one that seems the most D&D “back-to-basics”?

Drawing the battle lines…

Mike Mearls’ new Legend & Lore article outlines six design points that he hopes will give the D&D Next Fighter that Back-to-Basics-D&D-Fighterness  feel.  But sadly, some of the design points he covers are not taking the Fighter back-to-basics, which somewhat defeats the purpose of D&D Next.

Looking at the points in the L&L article, only three-and-a-half of the talking points on Fighter design really apply to the class throughout the history of D&D.  You’re probably wondering at which point is half right, but bear with me for a bit and I’ll get to that.

First off, I’d say that the design goal of The Fighter Is the Best at . . . Fighting! is absolutely true.  In all instances of D&D, Fighters have had the best “to hit”, and gains the ability to hit more than once per round at the same or multiple targets.  This has been true in every version of D&D prior to 4E, although arguably, he began to slip a bit here in 3.5 what with weapon focus, specialization, and multiple attacks became available to almost every melee class.

For the most part, The Fighter is Versatile is also true, with fighters being able to pick up and use any weapon in the game and kill effectively with it.  Unfortunately, this asset started going away in AD&D and 2nd Edition when Fighters were offered weapon specialization from Unearthed Arcana and Skills & Powers.  Sure a fighter can use all weapons, but he suddenly only became really good at one maybe two of them, and started using them exclusively.

And it’s hard to argue that the Fighter is the Toughest Character when he’s rolling massive d10 hit dice and usually having a stunning CON bonus to make a ton of hit points, which is then wrapped in the heaviest armors in the game.  There were a few exceptions to this rule even as far back as AD&D, such as the Cavalier which popped into the game with as much as twice a Fighter’s hit points at first level, and on a warhorse, and in full field plate!  But I know several DMs that laughed would-be Cavaliers right off their gaming tables when one was presented for play.  The Barbarian was also another tough class, rolling d12 hit dice, but their armor limitations prevented them from being quite so obnoxious as the Cavaliers.

But from here, the Fighter Design Goals aren’t really living up to the reality of back-to-D&D-basics, because many of them run counter to what we all experienced through several editions of the game.

To start off, Mearls states in The Fighter Draws on Training and Experience, not Magic that:

They don’t need spells or some sort of external source of magical power to succeed.  Fighters do stuff that is within the limits of mundane mortals.

Sadly, that is only HALF true, because while the Fighter does not study arcane lore, pray to a god for power, or make pacts with otherworldly creatures, he’s also not going to be very useful in a party without a serious dose of magic at regular intervals.  Fighters have been potion junkies from the very start of D&D, utilizing a wide range of them in combat in order to stay alive and augment their abilities.  And they have always been dependent on magical armor and magical weapons in order to keep doing their jobs well, although the dependence on magic armor and weapons has never been as pronounced as it has been in 4E.  Oh sure, a Fighter can get away with mundane gear, but even under AD&D rules, there were some creatures which ignored the blows of mundane weapons entirely, leaving a Fighter worthless unless he had magic in his hands.

And at higher levels, Fighters would often end up with pretty potent magic items like a Fill-In-The-Blank–Slaying Weapons, Sharpness or Vorpal Swords, a Mace of Disruption, or a Rod of Lordly Might, all of which gave them the ability to do substantial damage in combat against foes with a lot of hit points, sometimes killing them instantly.  Heck, there have been Fighters in some old AD&D and 2nd Edition campaigns literally bristling with weapons of several of the types mentioned, and MORE!  And this also is a lead-in to the point Mearls makes about The Fighter Exists in a World of Myth, Fantasy, and Legend.  Sure he does, but without magic items of a certain caliber, the Fighter has never been able to do the super-heroic feats mentioned in the article:

Beowulf slew Grendel by tearing his arm off. He later killed a dragon almost singlehandedly. Roland slew or gravely injured four hundred Saracens in a single battle. In the world of D&D, a skilled fighter is a one-person army. You can expect fighters to do fairly mundane things with weapons, but with such overwhelming skill that none can hope to stand against them.

In fact, the one-man army has never been part of the Fighter’s bailiwick, although in older editions of the game, he could stand toe-to-toe with tons of low-level critters and kick-butt.  The “old school” rules allowed for a well-equipped Fighter to stand up to a pack of Giant Rats, Kobolds, and Goblins because they were all below a single hit dice, and they could usually only hit a Fighter one-in-ten or even one-in-twenty swings.  And the Fighter got to return with a swing that could attack as many less than one-hit-dice monsters as he had levels – i.e. the 10th level Fighter could attack 10 kobolds in a single round!  But against higher level monsters, he could only kill them one at a time, which made many players I know seek out magical gear like Javelins of Lightning, Helms of Brilliance, and Necklaces of Missiles, just so they could whip out an area of effect attack when it was necessary to kill a lot of monsters on the battlefield.

In essence, “old school” Fighters quite often made themselves into what the late-great-Robert Aspirin might have “mechanics” in his Myth Adventure Series – grabbing up what magic items they could to produce spell-effects like Wizards already do naturally.

Which brings us to the final Fighter Design Point of A High-Level Fighter and a High-Level Wizard Are Equal.  Great design goal, but COMPLETELY counter to the back-to-basics design goal of D&D Next.  Only in D&D 4E was there some balance in capabilities of Fighters and Wizards, and that was accomplished several ways: the At-Will/Encounter/Daily power structure; substantially reducing the damage of Wizard AoE effects; offering the Fighter some limited AoE attacks and attacks which have special effects like stunning, dazing, slowing, etc.  None of these 4E character designs fit with the back-to-basics design paradigm which is at the heart of D&D Next.

If we truly take both the Fighter and Wizard back-to-D&D-basics, Fighters will be able to strike a single target several times in a round, but probably not kill it, while a Wizard will unleash an area of effect attack, roll a dozen dice, and kill several monsters in a single round.  This is the heart of the Fighter-Linear-Wizard-Quadratic problem which has plagued Dungeons & Dragons Editions since the Basic Set.

The only way to solve this discrepancy is begin making design decisions which will increase Fighter damage against multiple targets and add special effects like stunning, dazing, and so forth, like 4E did – definitely not back-to-basics.  Conversely, the Wizard could be limited in scope by reducing their damage dice, curtailing the number of special effects on their attacks, or by making spellcasters hit with their spells – or a combination of all of these.  Again, this goes against the back-to-basics canon of D&D Next, because the design team would be utilizing class power structure from 3.5 and 4E.  Oh yeah, and I should include Pathfinder along with 3.5 and 4E, as their non-back-to-basics innovations to melee classes have helped to somewhat resolve the Fighter-Linear-Wizard-Quadratic in that game system.

Conclusions

While I am in favor of the design goals for the Fighter class as put forth in today’s Legend & Lore article, I am still concerned how this will get implemented given the overall goal of creating a new edition of D&D that gets “back to basics”.  As with last week’s L&L article, several of the changes proposed to the Cleric were very not-Cleric, and therefore not fitting with the D&D Next design paradigm.  Likewise, the Fighter goals are solid, they don’t seem to be able to be accomplished without using design innovations we’ve seen in only the latest editions of D&D – 4E and Pathfinder – which will be a major turn-off for the old school gamers who love AD&D and Second Edition.  And much of the complexity of Fighters battle style requires that we leave behind “Theatre of the Mind”, pull out a battle mat, and write rules for handling complex melee maneuvers – again, something which is inherently counter to a “back-to-basics” design goal for D&D Next.

So I want to finish with a couple of questions for readers to ponder and comment upon, if you will:

• How much innovation is allowed in the game elements before the WotC Design Team diverts from the “back-to-basics” goal of D&D Next?
• How can the Fighter-Linear-Wizard-Quadratic issue be solved without over-charging the Fighter Class or over-limiting the Wizard Class?  And will that still be “back-to-basics”?

As always, your comments and feedback on my blogs are most welcome, and I’d love to hear what ideas the community has about the class design of D&D Next!

So until nect blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds.

Just a few minutes before I was getting ready to post this review link, I got word regarding a post on the WotC site.  In News on D&D Next, Mike Mearls has announced that Monte Cook has left the D&D Next Design Team, expressing his surprise and sadness over the loss of the veteran game designer.  Mike goes on to announce that D&D Next is about to enter the next phase of the design process, and will be entering open playtest on May 24th.  On a personal note, I am obviously curious about the reasons for the swift departure from the Next Team, but I wish Mr. Cook well in his future gaming endeavors.  Also, I’m excited to hear about the open playtest, and look forward to seeing for myself how the community reacts to the Next Version of D&D.

However, getting back to the topic at hand, I just posted a review today of the new D&D 4E adventure setting, the Halls of Undermountain!  This is the seventh product produced detailing the greatest super-dungeon ever created for D&D, and the first one offering the Undermountain experience for 4E gamers.

To read all the details about this product, please click the link below and head over to EN World to read the full review posted there:

Review of Halls of Undermountain by Wizards of the Coast

As I stated in the review, I wish I could be more enthusiastic about the product, but it feels a bit short of contents compared to the earlier editions versions of this mammoth dungeon delve.  And a mere 96-pages of contents seems a bit steep at 30 bucks plus tax for full retail – it’s a good thing Amazon offers a fairly decent discount on the book, which makes it a modestly reasonable purchase.  While I love my 4E books, the dwindling page lengths have been continuing now for almost two years, and the prices stay just as high, which I think is a real frustration to any gamer – myself included!

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

We’ve had L&L: Who Wants to Play the Cleric? on 4/26/2011 which touched on the evolution of the class and its powers.  It was quickly followed up on 5/3/2011 with L&L: The Problem of Clerics explaining why the class is both unpopular and necessary.  Then things were pretty quiet until 3/15/2012 with a blog by Bruce Cordell entitled Iconic D&D Clerics, then The Cleric, The Paladin, and Multisysteming by Tom Lapille on 3/29/2012.  Both these blogs seemed to be searching for what makes the cleric class unique unto itself, and in the latter article, what differentiates it from the Paladin.  Monte Cook wrote his own thoughts on defining the uniqueness of the Cleric class in Paladin Versus Cleric: FIGHT! .  And finally we have today’s article in Legends & Lore discussing The Cleric Design Goals in D&D Next, setting down yet more ideas on how this iconic class will appear in the new edition.

I think what worries me a bit is that we’ve been exploring the nature of the Cleric Class now for a full calendar year, over numerous articles, and yet it feels like the D&D Next design team is no closer to nailing down the fundamental nature of the class yet.  While there appears to be some accepted features that make a Cleric a Cleric, somehow it doesn’t seem as though anyone on the team is happy with those qualities.

So what’s the problem?  Why is the design team having so much trouble defining an iconic class like the Cleric in a new edition what touts itself on getting back to the “basics” of D&D?

Defining is Easy…

What is strange about this whole series of articles, is that from first to last, there doesn’t seem to be any problem with the team defining the basic features of the iconic D&D Cleric.  We know that Clerics cast divine spells and heal fellow adventurers.  Clerics use heavy armor and simple blunt weapons, like maces, and have decent hit points.  Fighters and Paladins are better at melee fighting than Clerics, but Clerics can generally hold their own in a fight.  And Clerics can turn undead, or control undead, depending on which side of the alignment fence you happen to hail from.

All this seems incredibly basic to me, and I would imagine it does to many other D&D gamers who have played or adventured alongside Clerics.  So why has it taken us a year of skull-sweat and hand-wringing to get us to the same point we were at last April when we started asking what D&D Clerics are made of?

I theorize that part of issue stems from how Clerics affect the pacing of the adventure.  There is obviously a direct correlation between the Cleric and to party survival during an adventure, not to mention how it affects the tedious issue of the “15 minute workday”.  The healing power of the Cleric must be a major factor in determining the potency of monsters’ attacks and on the viability of heroes to get through an encounter.  Considering that prior to 4E and the addition of the Second Wind power for all heroes, the Cleric was absolutely essential to whether or not the party would survive even a single fight, let alone a whole adventure.

Of course, the other major problem is undoubtedly one of the popularity of the class.  In the L&L: Who Wants to Play the Cleric?, Mearls discussed the trouble with attracting players to a class who has such a narrowly defined role in the party – healing and support.  Until 4E, Clerics had to spend their entire action either healing a member of their party or swinging a weapon at a foe.  That meant that most times, Clerics did little except sling healing around a combat, while everyone else hacked monsters to bits.  The only time that a Cleric really got to shine was in the face of undead, when they got to step boldly out front and send the undead horrors scurrying for the corners of the room.  This meant that only certain players would be interested in this role, which is clearly a small fraction of the D&D gamer base as a whole.

And this also rather begs the question of just who the Cleric Class Hero is on the D&D Next Design Team?  And by Class Hero, I mean the designer that loves Clerics so much that he dreams of casting Cure spells in his sleep.  I don’t doubt there are more than one Wizard Class Hero, constantly throwing out nifty ideas for what will make the Next Wizard something special.  From the intensity of some other blogs, I’d hazard to guess that there are few Class Heroes for Fighters, Rogues, and Paladins as well.  But who has got the Cleric’s metaphorical back on the Next Design Team?  Who’s advocating cool things for this class, when so many blogs have come out telling us how uncool the class is, and why it needs to keep the heck off the Fighters’ and Paladins’ schticks?

…But Designing is Hard!

Personally, I think the design team needs to be awfully careful when it comes to nailing down the features of the Cleric Class.  Clerics have their own schtick, and while they might be considered “boring”, there are ways to fix the boring aspects without losing the overall nature of being a Cleric.

Taking a cue from 4E would definitely be a wise decision, in my way of thinking, and let Clerics do a little healing effect or grant temporary hit points when they fight in combat.  Or just make some healing spells minor/swift/free actions in combat, so that a Cleric can heal and still run over and whack a monster with his mace.  Either of these functions will make playing the class more fun by offering the ability to function as both support and as combatant, without making the player choose between one or the other every round.

Another thing that the Cleric must not become is some sort of doppelganger of other classes.  We saw this particularly in 3.5, when a Cleric could stack so many buffs on himself that he could out-damage the Fighter and Rogue in melee combat, and hold his own against the Wizard for spell damage – and still heal!

In today’s article, Mearls mentioned that one of the natures of the Cleric Class was that “Clerics Reflect the Gods”.  He mentioned his own experience in a playtest where he made a very un-Cleric-like Cleric:

For instance, in a playtest I created an elf cleric of Apollo who was a skilled archer, woodsman, and scout. My character wore leather armor, carried a bow and a dagger, and spent the session sneaking ahead to spy on monsters, climbing a tree to escape an enraged ogre’s reach, and hiding in a dark corner to ambush a gang of monsters drawn out by the rest of the party.

Sure, that’s nifty and all, but what he sounds like he’s describing is a Ranger and not a Cleric.  And that sort of thinking is fairly troubling, because now we have a Cleric not being a Cleric just to try and make it appealing to people that don’t want to play Clerics.  How about you just go play a Ranger, and leave the Cleric to someone that wants to play one?

Sure, Clerics should reflect their god’s power, but that was discussed in the third point of the article with “Divine Magic Is Subtle and Indirect”.  Absolutely right, although there is nothing wrong with a god or gods granting their Clerics a few nifty perks now and then.  We’ve been doing that since a few Dragon articles came out in AD&D days, discussing offering Clerics a weapon proficiency of their god’s weapon, or a once a day power that matches their god’s major attack form.  Mearls’ article touches on that issue in the article by stating:

A cleric of the god of shadows should have different abilities than a cleric of the god of storms. On an adventure, they should have different approaches that are supported by divine gifts given to them by the gods. We should expect a cleric of the god of shadows to excel at hiding—even in heavy armor—while a cleric of the storm god can call down thunder and lightning.

Personally, I agree on the latter but not on the former example here.  Absolutely, the god of storms would grant some kind of storm power to a Cleric, but Clerics stealthing around in plate I’m not so sure about.  Divine magic is miracles, and as such they should show off the power of the god to an audience whenever possible.

• Storm god Cleric blasting foes with thunder and lightning – Miracle!
• Stealth god Cleric sneaks off – Not Miracle!
• Stealth god Cleric making whole party vanish momentarily to avoid a pack of orcs – Miracle!

I think Domains and Domain powers are definitely all a Cleric needs to make the power of their god felt, by giving them some a few alternate powers that reflect their god’s might and bailiwick, but without altering the basic form of the Cleric as a Class.  Like I mentioned previously, offering Clerics little perks from their god has been around since AD&D, and Cleric Domains finally gave it a structure and form in later editions.  If you’re going to keep the iconic cleric around, then simply adding Domains as a class feature is all you need to make a Cleric feel special and different than other Clerics.

And one thing I would remind the D&D Next Design Team is that not all deities are best represented by Clerics!  Traditionally in D&D, a great many gods were served by Druids instead of Clerics, obviously those deities with strong ties to nature, forests, and animals.  So the task of divine service should be reasonably divided up between at least those two classes, which will make it easier to just let Clerics be Clerics, and not all things to all deities.

In fact, taking it a step further, some martial and war-like deities might not have Clerics at all, and just have Paladins (and Anti-Paladins?) as their designated front-men.  Sure that would mean less healing for a party if you only had a Paladin along, but it might help to keep the various divine classes more distinct that way.

So obviously, there are still some major issues with the Cleric Class, despite it being one of the most original and most iconic class in the history of D&D.  For your consideration, here are some questions I’d very much welcome some feedback about:

• Do you like to play a Cleric, or do you play them out of necessity with a party?
• Is this a “class of last resort” for players?
• Why do you think that the design team is still working on the Cleric Class for D&D Next?
• What features would you like to see for the Cleric Class in the Next Edition?

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

I’m also excited to announce that I have a number of new products added to my review “to do” list, including a new edition of the Marvel Superhero Roleplaying game, a couple new Pathfinder products from indie publishers, a couple of products from Open Design (AKA those Kobold Quarterly guys) and Goodman Games, and a new subscriber-based online virtual tabletop combat product.  So there’s a lot on my reviewing plate, and the weeks ahead have got some very interesting new products!

Today, I’m taking a look at a Paragon Tier (gasp) adventure for D&D 4E by Sneak Attack Press.  This short adventure features a trip into the Underdark, and plenty of nasties to fight in order for the heroes to win the day and complete their quest.

For complete details about this 4E product, please click the link below and head over to EN World to read the review in its entirety:

Review of Beacon in the Dark by Sneak Attack Press

I’m really pleased to see Sneak Attack Press still plugging away out there making 4E products, and doubly so because this new release is for Paragon Tier gaming.  With so much product out there for the Level 10 and under gaming groups, it’s good to see any product which punches through the Heroic Tier “glass ceiling”.

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

But as we implemented the new house rules, some other questions arose regarding the “New Deal” for rituals, so I’m revisiting the topic one more time to clarify and refine the 4E homebrew.  A bit of the material in this blog is from the previous blog, but with a bit more clarification for how I want to see rituals utilized, and hopefully enjoyed, by the players in my campaigns.

Practical Magic

For my campaign, I thought it was important to differentiate the types of characters that use rituals, depending on how they learned their ability.  I think it is important to offer a small bonus to those classes which gain the Ritual Casting feat as a class feature, as opposed to say, a Paladin who picks up the Ritual Casting feat in order to be able to raise dead comrades.

So here is how I am classifying characters that have the ability to use rituals in my campaign:

• Ritualist – A character which is one of six classes – Artificer, Cleric (Templar), Druid, Invoker, Psion, Wizard (Arcanist) – that gains the Ritual Casting feat as a class feature.
• Practitioner – A character of a non-Ritualist class who uses a feat slot to gain the Ritual Casting feat.
• Alchemist – Any character that uses a feat slot to gain the Alchemist feat, or has chosen the Alchemist Character Theme.
• Enchanter – A character who is either a Ritualist or Practitioner, and also has the Creation Mastery, Pupil of the All-Father, or Master Crafter feats to specialize their abilities to create items.

So in my campaign, I am giving all of the ritual users listed above the following benefits:

• Buying Rituals – Rituals cost half the listed market value to purchase them and inscribe them in a ritual book.
• Casting Rituals – All ritual casters may cast 1 ritual per day, plus a bonus number of rituals equal to one-third their level (round down).  Ex. A 7th level character may cast 1 ritual + 2 bonus rituals for a total of 3 rituals per day.
• Components Discount – Rituals that do not create items (magic items, potions, elixirs, alchemical items, etc) have substantially reduced cost.  See below for the rules on components.

The specialized ritual casters – Alchemists, Enchanters, and Ritualists – gain additional abilities over those characters which are mere Practitioners.  This is to represent their more intense training and talents with casting rituals, brewing potions, and crafting magic items.

Because Ritualists have intensive study of ritual casting as part of their career (ie. class feature), they have better training and gain a two additional benefits:

• Advanced Study – Gain one ritual of the character’s choice, free of charge, every time they attain a new level.  The character can only select a ritual equal to her new level or less.  These rituals are considered to be learned by experimentation and study of ritual lore.
• Bonus Ritual Casting – Ritualists gain additional castings per day equal to half of their primary ability score modifier (either Intelligence or Wisdom).

Example: A 7th Level Wizard will have gained six free rituals from Advanced Study while leveling from 1st Level to 7th Level.  Also, he is capable of casting 3 rituals per day based upon his level, plus a bonus of 2 more rituals each day for having a 19 Intelligence (half of his +4 ability score bonus).

For Alchemists, with time and practice, the exacting process of brewing potions and elixirs becomes more like an art, and allows them to sometimes produce a brew with fewer reagents and reduced cost.

• Brewing Efficiency – Alchemists can sometimes brew a potion, elixir, or alchemical item at a 5%, 10%, or 15% discount.  While potions and alchemical items require no check to create, an Alchemist can choose to make a skill check to get a discount on the overall cost.  A skill check of Easy, Moderate, or Hard DCs versus the level of the potion or alchemical item will result in a discount of 5%, 10%, and 15% respectively.  However, failing to hit even an Easy DC means the Alchemist simply pays full price for reagents.

Enchant an Item

Whenever item enchantment becomes part of a campaign, I’ve found that it has always been a slippery slope at best.  Probably the slipperiest it got was in D&D 3.5/OGL, right after the Magic Item Compendium was released, but 4E’s nearly unlimited rules for magic item creation might as well be tagged “One-Hour Enchantments – while you wait!”.

To keep the creation of magic items special in a campaign, but still allow characters the freedom to make or even upgrade their own magic items, I came up with the following house rules for using the :

• Time – Creating a new magic item requires one casting of the Enchant Magic Item ritual per level of the item being created.  However, due to the Enchant Magic Item ritual is so tedious and taxing that it can only be cast once per day.  The ritual does not have to be cast all at one time, over an immediate succession of days – it can be cast over any number of days when it is convenient to cast the ritual.
• Cost – Making a magic item requires materials equal to the full list cost (as per the original ritual).  The costs are split up between the crafting/forging of the mundane item which is to be enchanted, and various ritual materials such as rare components, sacrifices to placate deities or some other supernatural entity, and the like.  Divide the total cost by the Level of the magic item, and that is the amount of gold that must be expended with each casting of the Enchant Magic Item ritual.

Note: This also allows for magic items to be completed over time, as money becomes available to the character, rather than a single massive expenditure.

Example: Maklos the Enchanter desires to make a +2 Flameburst Crossbow, which is an 8th Level magic item and costs 3400 gp.  It will take him 8 castings over 8 days in order to complete the weapon, and he spends 425 gp on materials each time he uses the ritual.  He could complete the weapon over a string of 8 successive days – or he could start the casting on one day, go off adventuring for a week, and then come back and get three more days of work done, be off again on another adventure, and finally complete the last four days when he gets back again.

The question of using “special ingredients” gained from killing monsters or foraging strange things while visiting stranger locales came up with regards to making magic items cheaper to make.   For the most part, I did not want characters to get away with “foraging” away major costs for crafting a magic item, however for ritual casters specialized in Enchanting, it seemed a decent benefit to allow them to get a small discount (up to 10%), if they can justify using difficult to obtain components as part of a quest specifically for that item.  So the following benefit applies to Enchanters only:

• Alternative Materials – Enchanters can gain up to a discount of 10% (DM’s discretion) of the cost of crafting a new magic item by obtaining “unusual” material components.  The components must be obtained by defeating monsters or a skill challenge which equals or exceeds the level of the item being enchanted.

Example: Maklos is coming up short for the funds to make his +2 Fireburst Crossbow.  He decides to try and obtain some magical fiery materials to use in the rituals in order to make the final cost less expensive.  So he talks his companions into accompanying him to a nearby volcano in search of a creature dangerous enough to empower the ritual.  Luckily, the volcano is teeming with flame snakes (Level 9), whose fiery spittle is more than capable of being used to enchant the crossbow, and at less cost in raw materials (the DM allows a 10% discount).

Magic Item Recipes (optional rule) – Under this rule, recipes are required to make new magic items.  Characters discover recipes typically through study (skill challenge), by discovering the recipe for a magic item as part of a treasure trove, or as a reward from a grateful and powerful patron.  Typically, possessing an item which can be used for study that shares one or more similar traits to the new item is a definite benefit when trying to create a magic item recipe.  For example, having a pair of Feyleaf Sandals on hand while trying to figure out a recipe for a Cloak of Displacement would be beneficial, as both items have the ability to teleport the wearer.  Also, having access to a mages’ guild, or an arcane library, or even a powerful magical entity can greatly improve the chances of obtaining a new magic item recipe.  Once a recipe is known, it can be recorded in the character’s ritual book and used repeatedly to create new magic items.

Solo Skill Challenge – Magic Item Recipes

Goal: Discover a Recipe for a New Magic Item
Level: Equal to the level of the magic item being created
Complexity: 2 (Heroic Magic Item), 3 (Paragon Magic Item), or 4 (Epic Magic Item)

Primary Skills: Arcana, Dungeoneering, History
Secondary Skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Heal, Intimidate, Insight, Nature, Religion, Streetwise

Examples of Skill Use:

Arcana – Up to half the successes of the challenge can come from this skill, and they can range from pure research to examining a magic item with similar properties.

Dungeoneering – Many magic items were created to excel at dungeon delving, and skill knowledge can assist in puzzling out the recipe.

History – Most magic items have been boon or bane of famous historical and legendary figures.  This skill knowledge can garner clues to what might be required to make the magic item which was the secret of their success – or their demise.

Secondary Skills – Many magic items have traits which relate back to a specific skill, such as the Healing for an item that heals or grants temporary hit points, or the Intimidate for an item that can cause fear or terror.  Social skills such as Bluff, Diplomacy, Insight, and Streetwise can also be used to interact with NPC sages and wizards to try to get them to reveal what they know about making a particular item, or to get eyewitness accounts of seeing a particular item in action.

Consequences

Experience Points – This skill challenge offers no experience points to the ritual caster.  Gaining a magic item recipe is its own reward.

Success – The ritual caster gains the recipe for the magic item of her choice and inscribes it in his ritual book.  She can now use it with the Enchant Magic Item ritual to make that particular item.

Failure – The formula is flawed and might produce a cursed item (as per Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium) or a Tragic Imprint (as per Gamefiend’s blog on the At-Will.com site).  Divide the number of successes by the total needed to determine the chance of creating a cursed or tragically imprinted item.  Note that the ritual caster knows the formula is flawed and can choose not to use it.

Upgrading existing Magic Items

To use the Enchant Magic Item ritual to upgrade a magic item to its higher level version is fairly straightforward.  The cost is the difference between the current magic item and the new upgraded version, and the time it takes is equal to the level difference between the two items.  Note that Enchanters can use their Alternative Material benefit to reduce the upgrade cost by up to 10%.  If the Magic Item Recipes optional rule is used, a skill challenge may be required to figure out the recipe for the new higher level version of the item.

Example: Maklos wants to upgrade his Level 8 +2 Fireburst Crossbow to the Level 13 version. It will cost him 13,600 gp (paying the difference in cost of 3400 gp to 17,000 gp) and will take 5 castings of the Enchant Magic Item ritual over 5 days (Level 13-Level 8 = 5).  Since he is short of funds again, he decides to head back to the nearby volcano to get components to get a discount on his upgrade.  Because the new item is Level 13, the blood from several Salamander Firetails (Level 14) he finds in the volcanic depths will easily help fuel the ritual casting.

A Question of Components

In general, the idea of getting back to the “old school” components for rituals that had been used in previous editions was welcomed in my campaigns.  However, there was still some need for clarification about whether foci costs from 4E would still be used.  As a general rule, I decided that 4E foci would be required, and at the specified cost, as it is a one-time purchase and usually fairly reasonable for the level at which the ritual could be cast.  But whenever possible, the old school components would be used instead of the costly residuum components, and I encouraged the characters to do their due diligence and try to look up the spell which inspired the 4E ritual to find out what the components were.

As a rule of thumb, the casting cost requires having the 4E focus, plus a cost equal to the “old school” component cost, unless the 4E ritual components costs less.  For example, the Unseen Servant ritual requires a 25 gp focus (one-time purchase) and negligible material costs (piece of string and a bit of wood).  The Raise Dead ritual, on the other hand, which cost a 5000 gp diamond, according to the D&D SRD, but would instead cost only 500 gp to cast in the Heroic Tier, using the 4E cost instead.

Some rituals are very powerful, such as Lich Transformation and Dark Gift of the Undying, and their material costs will be extreme and never free.

Overall, the limitation on casting rituals should have always been a set number of uses per day, rather than making them cost a sizeable percentage of a character’s share of gold from treasure parcels.  The new ritual rules I’ve added to the campaign have already caused a notable increase in the casting and use of these non-combat spells.

Last Words…

If you like these ideas put forth regarding rituals, please feel free to use them or a variant of them in your own 4E campaign.  My own players are just getting access to these variant rules as you are, so I have not had much time to playtest them, however, I think they should add some interesting role-playing and adventure options to my campaign.  As always, feedback is most welcome, and any suggestions about how to make these rules better would be great to see from my fellow players and Dungeon Masters!

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!