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DM's are always looking for new ways to spice up their game, and one of the most popular (and infamous) techniques is to introduce some sort of “critical miss” houserule. Normally, this is a bad idea, as the consequence of rolling a '1' is bad enough (ie, you miss no matter how skilled your character is), and anything else just adds insult to injury.

While going over the Dark Sun campaign guide, however, I was inspired by an optional rule in that book regarding weapon breakage (a common theme in a setting where weapons are not often made from metal).

So, without further ado, I present an optional rule you may wish to try out (or not)!

If, once per round, when making an attack roll, a player rolls a 1, they have the following option. They may simply accept the attack as an automatic miss, without further penalty. Alternately, they may re-roll the attack, but must accept the new roll, regardless of any ability or effect. Should the die come up as a 5 or less, however, once the attack is resolved, their character suffers a minor setback.

Fumble Results Table (roll 1d6):

1. The character drops the weapon/implement that was used to make the attack, which falls in their space. They must use a minor action to retrieve the item. If the attack was not made with either a weapon or an implement, nothing happens.
2. The character is slowed until the end of their next turn.
3. The character grants combat advantage to the enemy they attacked until the end of the enemy's next turn.
4. The character falls prone.
5. If the character's next attack hits, it inflicts half damage. If the attack misses, it cannot deal damage or an effect that would occur on a miss.
6. The character provokes an opportunity attack from the enemy they attacked.

The once per round limitation is there to keep characters who can attack multiple times per round from being unfairly punished by this optional rule. While it does penalize players, each player can decide to simply accept that they missed and be done, so it is completely optional. Allowing players a chance to recover from a bad roll, even if it can potentially disadvantage them, can make the characters feel more heroic.

Thought it may seem like a good idea to use this same rule for monsters, I personally advise against it- the PC's opponents may be quite powerful, but they aren't the stars of the show, and such feats as falling flat on your face while getting in a lucky hit should be reserved for the heroes.

Also, you should consider the fact that this rule can add additional time to an encounter, so you may not want to have the possibility of a fumble each turn! I tried to keep the penalties imposed reasonable, and it's entirely possible that a penalty may not apply to a character- if so, good for them!

Related articles

• Reconsidering combat fumbles from Geek Ken (geekken.blogspot.com)
• When Good Dice Turn Bad: A Lesson In The Improbable (campaignmastery.com)

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So I went to see Thor Sunday, and while I was watching it, I started to think about how I could make everyone's favorite hammer-chucker in D&D. The key problem was that Thor is primarily a melee beast, but he also has an awesome ranged attack, and his fighting style alternates between the two rather seamlessly.

If it's in his face, he swings his hammer at it, if it's not, he hurls Mjolnir while he advances. I have seen a lot of melee classes acquire a secondary ranged weapon (Dwarven Thrower weapons are very popular), but in this case, it's really a gimmick- something to do when you can't reach an enemy.

I wanted to build a Thor-style character who uses the ranged attack as an integral part of what he does as a matter of course, allowing for that seamless switch in tactics. To date, only a few classes really pull this off:

The Ranger

The Ranger was designed to be able to use melee and ranged attacks equally. While you can (and many Rangers do) specialize in one tactic over another, it's not hard to build a Str/Dex Ranger who is equally at home in and out of melee, especially when Dwarven Thrower and Hungry Spear enchantments come into play.

But Thor is no Ranger- the Ranger's job is Striker, and while Thor is a damage-dealer, he seems a bit more “in-your-face” to me. He's a guy with a high AC who presents a problem to the Bad Guys, protecting his allies. That screams Defender to me.

The Slayer

This is a little more like it- the Slayer is plenty tough, and there are ways to make him a credible semi-Defender thanks to his Fighter chassis. He can be built to use Ranged attacks rather effectively as well. So this is a class I kept my eye on.

As an aside, the Slayer is actually better at switching between melee and ranged tactics than the Essentials Scout-Ranger, and a lot tougher as well.

The Hexblade

Another Striker, the Hexblade has both a very nice melee weapon (in some cases, one of the best melee weapons in existence), as well as ranged powers. While one could describe the powers differently to achieve the same effect, again, this is a Striker class better suited to skirmishing than Thor's general disdain for personal safety.

The Rogue

The Rogue, and his twin brother, the Thief, are very good classes for switching between melee and ranged tactics. Unfortunately, the Rogue classes are a bit squishy and better suited for skirmishing than everyone's favorite Thunder-Guy.

The Seeker

The Spiritbond build powers are designed to allow you to use a heavy thrown weapon in either melee or ranged combat. There's some nice stuff here, and one could imagine Thor as a Spiritbond Seeker very easily. That having been said, being able to smack stuff in melee is an afterthought, and most Spiritbond Seekers would be much happier staying out of melee combat.

Ultimately, what I wanted as a tough, Defender-style character, who innately uses ranged powers as part of his arsenal without skipping a beat. This is what I ended up doing:

“The Mighty Thor-Guy”

Human Knight
Knight Option: Shield Finesse
Human Power Selection Option: Bonus At-Will Power
Auspicious Birth (Auspicious Birth Benefit)

Str 16 (18), Con 10, Dex 13, Int 9, Wis 16, Cha 10

Trained Skills: Athletics, Diplomacy, Heal, Nature, Streetwise

Stances: Battle Wrath, Poised Assault

Bonus At-Will Power: Cleave

Feats: Shield Finesse (bonus), Deft Hurler Style, Primal Sharpshooter (Multiclass Seeker)

As you can see, I had to give up some aspects of the original character to make this work. As a God/Alien/Superhero, Thor himself has more character points to work with! The low Constitution is where this is really apparent, and I'm forced to rely on a Background to make up for the hit point deficit, which means I could only use this character in a game that allowed them (such as Living Forgotten Realms). The investment in Dexterity is required for Deft Hurler, one of the linchpins of the build, and the unusually high Wisdom is there to support his Multiclass.

Deft Hurler allows the character to, when using Cleave, replace the normal benefit (Strength damage to an adjacent enemy) with something truly awesome: you can make a ranged basic attack (that does not provoke opportunity attacks) against any enemy in range other than the one you just hit with Cleave!

Thus every turn, Thor-Guy can smack someone in melee, and simultaneously throw his mighty hammer at some other enemy who isn't necessarily anywhere near him! The Seeker multiclass makes this even better, allowing him to use Guardian Harrier once per encounter. Guardian Harrier is a ranged basic attack, so he can Cleave one enemy, and then Guardian Harrier in the same action!

So why Guardian Harrier? Mostly because it's special effect scales with Strength, an attribute Thor-Guy will have in spades. Specifically, it causes the target to take Strength damage if they don't move at least two squares away from their starting position on their turn. This is especially nasty if used on an enemy already in Thor-Guy's Defender aura, but it can also be used to force a brute to move away from one of your squishier comrades. Most enemies will suck up the bonus damage, but that's not a bad thing either.

The other benefit you get from Primal Sharpshooter is Inevitable Shot. Granted, it's only once per day, but it can be quite amusing to see. You Cleave, and make a ranged basic against another enemy. You miss, so you Inevitable Shot the missed attack...right back at the guy you just hit with Cleave!*

*This is legal as far as I can tell, but your DM may raise an eyebrow at such shenanigans, so, as always, YMMV.

At level 1, Thor-Guy probably won't be using his build to maximum advantage, since it involves disarming himself, not generally a good move. Plus, there aren't many good heavy thrown weapons that are also decent melee weapons. Thor-Guy may actually be forced to carry a Trident around, of all things (and more than one, at that!).

Still, the character remains a functional Knight- you can still use Cleave in it's normal configuration, dealing damage to an adjacent foe, so that's still a plus. Your stances were chosen because they work with both ranged and melee basic attacks, so you don't have the control of Defend The Line either. And there's the fact that you only have 9 healing surges, so you may have to take less risks.

Still, level 1 Thor-Guy is a competent Defender, if not a top-tier one. Once he gets his hands on a magic Trident (or, by Odin, a Dwarven Thrower Warhammer!), he'll come into his own, hopefully by (or even before) level 2!

The only real issue with this build is that you cannot use Power Strike with any of your other abilities, meaning you won't get much use out of it until there's only a single enemy. And when fighting a solo, you won't be making many ranged attacks either (although remember that Guardian Harrier can be used in melee, if you happen to be wielding something with the Heavy Thrown property!).

While the real Thor scoffs at using a Shield, there's no reason for Thor-Guy not to use one. One of the big advantages of this build is the high defenses you can get. Let's take a look at Paragon Thor-Guy:

Human, Knight, Crimson Hunter
Knight Weapon Specialization Option: Staggering Hammer

Str 21, Con 11, Dex 14, Int 10, Wis 19, Cha 11

AC: 30 Fort: 30 Ref: 22 Will: 27
HP: 96 Surges: 9 Surge Value: 24

Powers: Battle Wrath, Poised Assault, Defend The Line, Inevitable Shot, Cleave, Guardian Harrier, Secrets of the City*, Healer's Gift*, Shield Block*, Fighter's Grit*, Ravaging Shot

Feats: Shield Finess (bonus), Deft Hurler Style, Primal Sharpshooter, Master at Arms, Superior Will, Superior Fortitude, Encouraging Shield, Stout Shield, Primal Eye

*The Utility Powers are personal preference, and you can switch them out for anything you like. I didn't take Intimidate, despite it having some very nice Defender Utilities, again, from personal preference. Secrets of the City is really only good for Skill Challenges, and Thor-Guy sadly doesn't have the kind of Charisma the real Thor possesses. Intimidate would probably be a better choice to get things like Glowering Threat.

I went with Crimson Hunter as my Paragon Path, to bolster Thor-Guy's ranged attacks. The Path grants, among other things, a +1 bonus to hit with ranged attacks, and another ranged basic Encounter Power in Ravaging Shot.

Equipment is fairly standard, using the quick-start rules, I was able to get the following with money to spare:

Eagle Eye Goggles (Heroic Tier)
Badge of the Berserker +2
Dwarven Throwers (Heroic Tier)
Heavy Shield of Deflection
Dwarven Thrower Warhammer +3*
Summoned Gith Plate Armor +3

*I could have spent a Feat for a Craghammer here, Brutal 2 is nothing to sneeze at, but I wanted to get all the Defense-boosting Feats out of the way to show what you could have by level 11.

Our Mighty Thor-Guy has, at this point, +18 to hit with Cleave, and +20 to hit with his ranged basic attack. He can increase this by +1 with Poised Assault, but most likely he'll be increasing his damage with basic attacks by +3 with Battle Wrath. His melee damage is only 1d10+11, but his ranged damage is much more considerable, at 1d10+16, and, of course, don't forget that he can attack twice per turn.

There's some room for improvement, but I really like the way this build turned out, and I think it has a lot of potential. Maybe I'll even get to try it out someday...

Related articles

• Heroes of Shadow Review Part 1 - The Blackguard (weebeegamers.com)
• Name That Thor Artist! (goodcomics.comicbookresources.com)
• Your First Look at The Mighty Thor #1 (graphicpolicy.com)
• Behind the Counter: Who is Who...The Mighty Thor? (geeksyndicate.wordpress.com)

I could regale bore you with tales of my first Paladin, Valric Manfred the Shadowbrand for hours on end, and he was just one of many.

When I started playing the new Edition, however, well, I could see something was wrong with my favorite class. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with Paladins who choose to Defend, it's certainly in theme. But where were the Paladins that ran around smiting Evil?

The only Divine Striker was the Avenger, who, while pretty cool, isn't a Paladin. More like a Vatican Assassin or something. And yes, I'm aware of the Ardent, which is certainly a step in the right direction, but there was something a bit off about that build as well.

Here we have a Paladin who chooses to be a bad Defender in order to kick ass. Why not just cut out the middleman?

Enter the Blackguard, the Anti-Paladin Cavalier. Where the Cavalier has Virtues, he has Vices. He sure ain't Lawful, and he's probably not Good. But more importantly, he's a Striker. No Auras here, the Blackguard is here to take names and kick butt!

Which begs the question. Is he any good at it?

The Good

The Blackguard is a Strength-based melee class. That means he already has a strong melee basic attack, so he can charge and make opportunity attacks if need be. He can also use heavy thrown weapons, if you want to be like The Mighty Thor.

While he does use Charisma to power his special abilities, it doesn't need to be super-high. A 16 should do nicely, which means just about any race that has a bonus to Strength or Charisma can be a fine Blackguard.

Granted, there are two races that grant a bonus to both, the Dragonborn and the Vyrkola, but there are reasons those may not be the best choices. I'll get to them in a bit.

So unless you really want to poach some Charisma-based powers from the core Paladin (bah, puny Implement Powers), there are many fine choices for your Blackguard's race.

Secondly, the Blackguard is a Paladin, and he's built on the same chassis. Which means that I can officially award the Blackguard the title of World's Toughest Striker. 15+Constitution hit points, 10 starting healing surges, +1 to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will, as well as proficiency with Plate and Heavy Shields make the Blackguard a menace on the battlefield. If you want endurance, the Blackguard is your guy. Where other Strikers may quickly fall flat after a few Encounters, this guy keeps on going, and that's a good thing, because...

The Bad

The Blackguard is a mediocre Striker. He does have a damage-boosting mechanic, adding Charisma to his damage rolls...provided he has Combat Advantage. Unlike the Thief, the base Blackguard doesn't really have any way to guarantee Combat Advantage either, which will be an issue.

The Blackguard is capable of some ridiculous damage, but you're not going to see it every round, let alone every combat! Both Vices have a different method of delivering the big hits, and I'll discuss them in turn.

First, Domination.

Domination has a familiar-sounding method of increasing their damage output. If the Blackguard has temporary hit points, they can, as a free action, take damage equal to their Charisma-modifier. They then add a bonus to their damage roll equal to the damage they took.

Domination comes with an At-Will attack that grants them temporary hit points, just to give them a good chance to actually start their turn with at least one temp h.p.. I should also note that the class as a whole has several other ways to get temporary hit points, but that's the easiest method.

All Blackguards have an At-Will attack that inflicts 2 bonus damage per enemy adjacent to them (maximum of +8), and an Encounter power that works a little like the Cavalier's Holy Smite- when they target an enemy with an At-Will attack, they can use their Dread Smite to automatically inflict cold/necrotic damage, and if the attack hits, toss on ongoing 5 cold/necrotic.

So, if the following conditions are met:

• Blackguard has temporary hit points on their turn.
• Blackguard has combat advantage against an enemy.
• Blackguard is adjacent to four or more enemies.
• Blackguard attacks with Vengeance Strike, uses Dread Smite, and hits.

(Assuming Str 18, Cha 16): 1 [W] +15 damage, plus 5 cold/necrotic, plus 5 ongoing cold/necrotic.

That's a really nice hit, and it doesn't even consider other bonuses, just raw Strength and Charisma! At the same time, however, there are going to be many turns where you can't combo like that, and likely turns where you're doing 1 [W] + Strength damage!

This makes the Blackguard a very swingy Striker, even more so than the Rogue.

As for Fury Blackguards, they have a little easier time inflicting their damage. They get a +2 bonus to damage when they have Combat Advantage (on top of the existing bonus), which rises to +4 if the enemy is bloodied. They also have an At-Will attack that gives them Combat Advantage on their next attack. This makes them a little less swingy, and possibly somewhat more accurate as well.

It's still far from guaranteed, and in most battles, their damage output will seem less spectacular than other Strikers.

The Ugly

As the Blackguard rises in level, he gains access to other methods to increase his damage, but many of them are Encounter-based or equally situational. This means that a Blackguard player needs to be patient, and wait for the right moment to get synergy with his various damage boosting techniques.

He isn't very good at front-loading damage, and his nova takes some setup. With the right party, his job gets a lot easier, but most Strikers prefer to be able to function alone, without depending on others.

This isn't to say that the Blackguard is bad- he's not. But if your (or your fellow player's) idea of a good Striker is someone who can front-load massive damage and kill enemies within the first few turns of combat, then you should stick to Rangers or Rogues.

The Blackguard is good in games like Encounters, where you have to conserve resources over the course of a month, and you can afford to be patient, waiting for that moment when the stars align just so, and you deal so much damage your DM will faint dead away!

In something like LFR, however, where there are generally less combats (due to time constraints), the Ardent will be vastly superior to the Blackguard, as they can afford to spam their abilities.

In summation, the Blackguard is a rewarding class, but the rewards are somewhat different than other Striker classes. If you like the idea of being a darkly divine hero who smites his enemies in close combat, and can take any amount of punishment the game can dish out, then you should definitely check out the Blackguard!

Races

Dragonborn seem to be a natural fit for Paladins of all stripes, and the Blackguard is no exception. However, the main problem with them is that their Dragonbreath power's damage is based on Constitution, and that may be an attribute you'll have a problem raising high enough to be relevant. If you're not playing pure Essentials, there exist Feats to mitigate this, but be careful not to spend too many Feats on a single Encounter ability!

Vyrkolas, with their noble bearing and dark ancestry, make excellent Blackguards. However, when bloodied, they do take a minor penalty to their healing surge value. It's not much, and at higher levels, it is quite probably academic, but it is a small hit to their overall toughness, which is a big selling point of the class.

There are few bad choices, but Dwarves are a pretty solid choice. The +2 to Con won't go to waste, and the minor action Second Wind will only increase your overall toughness. Further, if your game allows for non-Essential Feats, Dwarves have a lot of nice ones to choose from, including the excellent -to-slightly overpowered Dwarven Weapon Training.

That's all for now, I hope you've found this review to be informative. See you next time for more D&D Heroes of Shadow reviews!

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So here we are again, talking about those wacky 4e rules. This time, I'm going to go over rules that confuse even veteran gamers, 'readying an action' and 'delaying'.

So what's the problem?

D&D is not a very accurate simulation of real life. If, for example, a massive brawl breaks out in real life, you don't have people standing around, patiently waiting to take their turn in battle. It's every man for himself (and women...and warforged. And shardminds!), acting all at once in a big confusing mess.

D&D wants to attempt to give you the feel of a big, chaotic combat scene, while still making it easy to figure out who's doing what, and when. So we have the nice orderly combat sequence. The guy with the highest initiative goes first, and we take it from there.

Thanks to immediate actions, immediate interrupts, and opportunity actions, you can also act during someone else's turn, which further helps immerse yourself in the combat experience. So far, so good.

Inevitably, however, someone will want to wait for an opportune moment to act. I remember way back in the day (2e), the Blink spell would cause the caster to randomly phase in and out of the material world, making them hard to attack. A canny player would ask if they could just wait for the Wizard to materialize before smiting him on his pointy hat.

Regardless of how the rules worked, the player would insist on being allowed to do just that, simply because you can do it in real life. Never mind that casting spells or swinging swords the size of Rhode Island aren't possible in real life!

So rules were written to allow this sort of thing to happen, to try and not deprive players of actions they could reasonably take. The theory is sound, really. A player with higher initiative has a choice. Act now, before anyone can react, or set yourself up to react to the tactics of those who aren't quite as quick on the uptake. In practice, things get a little screwy.

Readying an Action

You hear this one a lot. “I want to shoot at the first enemy I see when the door is opened!” It sound reasonable enough, doesn't it? Rather than attack now, you want to attack at an opportune moment. So let's go over the rules in more detail.

Readying is a Standard Action. Sort of. Actually, you're setting aside your Standard Action to use later on in the turn. Of course, it doesn't need to be a Standard Action- Move and Minor Actions are also fair game. When you Ready, you select the type of action you want to use, and the intended target, if any.

Next, you select a trigger for when the Readied action will occur. When the trigger occurs, your action occurs, as if it were an Immediate Reaction (and thus using up your Immediate Action for the round). If it doesn't occur, or you elect not to use it for some reason, you simply take your next turn as normal.

Some DM's may wish you to be very specific with your triggers, in order to prevent abuse. Here are some examples:

“The first enemy that comes within range, I'll blast with Magic Missile!”

“When a kobold moves adjacent to me, I want to Bull Rush it!”

“If Hugo, the brigand leader, attacks Tusk, our Warden, I'll use Healing Word on Tusk.”

It's important for your DM to be both fair and consistent with how permissive he is on setting Readied Action triggers. If he's too strict, then this action will be primarily reserved for corner cases, and not used often- which may suit him (or her) just fine! On the other hand, if too permissive, everyone will ready actions all the time, making a shambles of turn sequence.

Just remember, however, that the monsters can Ready actions as well, and it may be to their benefit to do so! So the same rules will apply and be (ab)used equally.

If you use your Readied Action, your Initiative is reset so that now you act just before the creature or event that triggered it. So, for example, if your Initiative is 20, and you use your Readied Action during another creature's turn (let's say, a Hobgoblin who has a 14 Initiative), next turn you won't act until just before the Hobgoblin's turn.

Now things get a little more complicated.

Opportunity Attacks

Let's say that you want to Ready a ranged attack. Ranged attacks normally provoke Opportunity Attacks. There's an enemy standing next to you, so you don't want to attack on your turn. You might think that Readying with a trigger of “as soon as the enemy is no longer adjacent to me” might be a good idea.

Sadly, you'd be wrong! Readying an Action that provokes is the same as making the action. So our hapless archer would be struck immediately. Oops!

In addition, performing a Readied Action that provokes also provokes. This may sound a bit unfair, but there is some logic behind it. Even if an Action provokes, you cannot make Opportunity Actions on your own turn. Since a Readied Action usually occurs on someone else's turn, they might not be allowed to react to it the way they normally would. Many enemies have triggered abilities they can employ when attacked, so while Readying is a good tactic to use against them, it's not without it's weaknesses.

Interrupting

A Readied Action is an Immediate Reaction, which means it occurs after it's trigger. This may make it seem impossible to attack before your enemy does when your Action triggers. However, you can set your trigger to be dependent on an enemy's movement. For example:

“If the Orc swings his axe at the Wizard, I'll shoot him with my bow!”

“If the Orc moves adjacent to the Wizard, I'll shoot him with my bow!”

This just goes to show it pays to think about what will trigger your Action!

Another thing that often comes up with Readied Actions is when “beginning” and “ending” of turn effects occur. The answer, actually, is when they normally do! You make a Readied Action during your turn, but your turn doesn't stop there. So if you are suffering from Ongoing 5 damage, you take it, you Ready, you make whatever other actions you like, then you save.

If your trigger goes off, your Initiative changes, but you will take the damage again at the beginning of your next turn as normal. Some canny players will think to use a Readied Action to change their Initiative order to go after an ally who can grant them a saving throw or heal them. It's perfectly legal to do so, although your DM may quirk an eyebrow in your direction at such tactics.

Just remember, however, that this works both ways. For example, if you are “vulnerable 5 to all damage (save ends)”, changing your Initiative could give monsters more opportunities to take advantage of you than they would have ordinarily! Alternately, your DM may look at the rules for Delaying, which are very clear for how Start and End of Turn effects are applied.

Delay

As a free action, you may wish to wait to take your turn until later in the combat round. There are several reasons to do this. For example, Striker classes often have excellent Initiative, and Defender classes often...don't. If you are a melee Striker, you might not want to run into combat before your Defender, so Delay becomes a good option for you.

Leader classes are also often “initiative-deprived”. This normally works to their advantage, as their powers are often reactive in nature. A Leader who gets a good Initiative roll, however, may want to Delay until an ally is wounded, or the battle shifts.

Once you Delay, you can return to the Initiative order after any turn has been completed. Your Initiative changes to this new position in the order.

If you don't take your Delayed turn, for some reason, when your original Initiative comes back up in the order, you lose the Delayed turn and take your turn then.

Start and End of Turn

Effects that are triggered by your turn starting happen when you opt to Delay- you can't Delay to avoid ongoing damage, for example. Any effect you are sustaining ends, and effects that last until the end of your turn now end if they are beneficial to you and your allies! This prevents you from extending the duration of a beneficial effect.

After you take your Delayed turn, you make the saving throws you normally do at the end of your turn, and the durations of baneful effects that expire at the end of your turn now do so.

Since you can lose a Delayed turn if you do not take it, if you are suffering from a baneful effect, such as ongoing damage, be careful with this option!

With as much confusion as these rules tend to cause at gaming tables, you'd expect them to be more complicated than this, but it really boils down to the fact that, most of the time, you don't have much reason to Ready or Delay. Properly used, these tactics can make your character very effective. Improperly used, and you're literally wasting time.

DM's need to be careful as well. While it may seem like a good idea to use Ready and Delay to foil your player's tactics, doing so will no doubt frustrate and annoy them needlessly. For example, let's say you know that the party Leader can grant saving throws.

You have an enemy who can place “stupidly annoying effect (save ends)” on players. Delaying your enemy's turn until after the Leader's will ensure a whole round of bad stuff...and make the Leader less effective. Until the Leader starts Delaying. Which could end with both your enemy and the Leader simply losing turns!

Since you probably don't want each encounter turning into a glorified game of 'chicken', it's best to use such tactics sparingly. Let the players open the door when it comes to more advanced options; if they want to use the rules to their advantage, that's fine- show them that it works both ways!

You just don't want to force your players into having to master areas of the rules they aren't comfortable with yet.

With all that in mind, I hope this article has given you new insight into how to make the rules work for you, instead of against you!

Related articles

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• Running the Combat Part of Combat Blisteringly Fast from Dungeon's Master (dungeonsmaster.com)
• Understanding the Economy of Actions from Sly Flourish (slyflourish.com)

So what went wrong?

The party had progressed into the final stages of the adventure, which consisted of three encounters. The first encounter had the party face a pair of animated ice statues, with a small gang of artillery minions spawning behind them.

Ice Guardian Statue, Level 2 Soldier

HP 41
AC 16, Fortitude 16, Reflex 10, Will 9

Chilling Aura: Aura 1, enemies who start within the aura are slowed and cannot shift until the end of their next turn.

Stone Body: the Ice Guardian resists 5 points of damage from any attack with a single damage type. Attacks that inflict multiple damage types overcome this resistance.

Slam: melee basic attack, At-Will. +8 vs. AC, 1D8+5 cold damage, and the target is knocked prone.

Ice Burst; immediate reaction. When reduced to 0 hit points or less, the Ice Guardian explodes. Close burst 2, +6 vs. Reflex, 1d4+5 cold damage, and the area within the burst becomes difficult terrain until the end of the encounter.

Winter Shadow, Level 2 Artillery (Minion)

HP 1
AC 14, Fortitude 14, Reflex 14, Will 10

Phasing: the Winter Shadow can move through objects, blocking terrain, or enemies, but cannot end it's turn within a blocked space. Whenever it moves through an object or enemy, it inflicts 1d6 cold damage to it. The Winter Shadow provokes opportunity attacks as normal.

Spectral Body: the Winter Shadow resists 5 points of damage from any attack. This ability does not allow the Winter Shadow to resist fire or radiant damage.

Icy Touch; melee basic attack, At-Will. +9 vs. Reflex, 1 cold damage, target slowed until the beginning of the Winter Shadow's next turn.

Frozen Orb; ranged basic attack, At-Will. Ranged 10 attack, +7 vs. Reflex, 3 cold damage, target pushed 1d4 squares away and slowed until the beginning of the Winter Shadow's next turn.

The encounter took place in a room mostly filled with difficult terrain, save for a large, frozen fountain. Movement on the ice was possible, but at the end of each turn on the ice, an Acrobatics check (DC 10) was required to avoid falling prone. Also, if you moved during your turn, and ended your turn on the ice, you were automatically slid 1 square further in the direction you last moved.

I wanted this encounter to more of a tactical challenge, but I made a few mistakes. First, overuse of the slow and prone conditions, as well as difficult terrain made movement nearly impossible, especially when the enemies could push the player characters around!

Second, the resistance values were too high for a low-level party of adventurers. There really isn't much excuse for resistance on a minion anyways, and I've already discussed how I feel that resistance simply adds 'fake difficulty' to an encounter. I was planning on not using resistance to damage very often in the future as a result of this, but I should have started sooner.

For example, the party Mage couldn't even kill minions with their Beguiling Strands! Not good! I can't pinpoint exactly what went wrong with this encounter- there were some bad die rolls on the player's parts, and they had difficulties with focus fire. Most of the players used their action points to try and eliminate the enemies faster.

Minions are meant to be killed in one hit. A minion that doesn't die in one hit is harder to kill than a standard minion, and I should have used less of them. Limiting mobility isn't the same as denying someone their turn, but it's still obnoxious.

Still, this encounter didn't end badly, as the party was able to heal up. The Warpriest was barely fazed, since he'd used a Daily item power to resist the cold damage. Unfortunately, the next encounter featured four Ice Guardians, and an Ice Commander.

Ice Commander, Level 2 Soldier (Elite/Leader)

HP 82
AC 17, Fort 17, Ref 9, Will 9

Chilling Aura (see above)

Icy Spear; melee basic attack, At-Will. Reach 3, +8 vs. AC, 1d10+5 cold damage, target slid to any square adjacent to the Commander.

Icy Gambit; Encounter, recharge 6. Close burst 3 (all enemies within burst), +7 vs. Reflex, 1d10+5 cold damage. Effect: slide all allies and enemies within burst 1 square. At the end of this movement, each ally within the burst can make a melee basic attack against an enemy within range.

Ice Burst: as above, but Close burst 3, +7 vs. Reflex, and 1d8+5 damage.

There was no difficult terrain in this encounter, but the auras of the ice statues still hurt. The commander was a large ice statue armed with a greatspear, which is why I gave it so much reach. Unfortunately, this reach allowed it to attack the party Defender on the first turn from 3 squares away, and slide him behind it, into a flanking position. From there, the Defender was on his own for the rest of the encounter, being attacked by multiple enemies, and unable to protect the party.

Icy Gambit wasn't much help either; though it had a low chance of recharging, the Commander was able to use it three times during the encounter, granting bonus attacks to the other statues, while ensuring the party members were caught in the Chilling Auras. This locked down the party, and isolated the party members from one another.

Though the Mage used his Phantom Chasm power to lock down some of the enemies, and daze effects were employed, the Defender was still subject to repeated attacks, and quickly fell unconscious. In the end, the party was unable to focus fire their enemies down, due to positioning and fear of retributive damage from exploding ice statues!

The Leader used one of his Healing Words on himself early in the encounter, when he likely should have used his Second Wind. The other players didn't think to use their own Second Winds (and, really, there were some lackluster surge values anyways), and before long, everyone was on the ground, unconscious.

I'd known this would be a rough encounter, but what I failed to take into account was the fact that the party would be unable to use effective tactics against these enemies. They couldn't even retreat if they wanted to! Add to this the fact that the party burned some resources in the first encounter that they shouldn't have, and you get a recipe for disaster.

Some of the problems with the first encounter carried over, such as excessively limiting movement and too much damage reduction, with only two characters being able to inflict effective damage over the course of the encounter. Also, I am running for some new players, and they likely weren't ready for a rough encounter.

The Ice Commander was a neat design, but I feel it had too much ability to influence the battlefield compared to 1st-level characters. My decision to improve all the enemies to level 2 played a minor role as well. The party had performed very well against level 1 enemies, so I thought I'd slightly tweak the challenge rating, and give them more experience. Oops.

Still, nobody seemed overly upset, and everyone wants to come in with new characters and try again, so it wasn't a total failure. So it's back to the drawing board for me!

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Well, to be fair, I've never seen a system where readied actions didn't confuse everyone! I'll expand on that more later. You may have noticed I haven't been as prolific in my writing of late, and the reason is- I didn't have much new to say!

I keep touching on the same points in my editorials, and often, I come off as way too critical- something else I've talked about before. It may seem paradoxical that someone who claims to enjoy gaming nitpicks about it so damn much!

I admit it. I take my hobby way too seriously. Of course, who doesn't take the things they enjoy seriously? Remember, 'fan' is simply shorthand for 'fanatic'! As an example, there's a member of my gaming group, [REDACTED], who has considerable talent at painting miniatures. I've yet to see a piece of his work I didn't like, but if you ask him about it, usually he'll have some negative comment about how it turned out.

It's pretty much the same way I look at my writing. As an amateur author, I tend to be exceedingly critical of my work, which is why you probably won't see much of it. You see, I'm my worst critic. When I write something, it's amazing, incredible, and I think “maybe this is worth publishing!”.

Then I re-read it later, and I realize how much of a hack I am. It's hard to find value in your own work- you need validation from others. Especially from people you trust. So why am I going off on this tangent?

It's been awhile since I've run a game with any system, but telling a story has always been something I've loved to do. The first hurdle was acquiring enough systems mastery of 4e. Now, I don't think that a DM really needs to know the rules all that well to run a fantastic game. However, in my experience, whenever everyone has to stop gaming to reach for books when a rules question comes up, that's never a good thing for your game. So I make it a point to learn as much as I can. Every time I do make a mistake, I'm reminded of how much I still need to learn.

That's okay, though. Even now, over two years into 4e, WotC is still revising their own ruleset. Any game is a work in progress, and D&D is no different.

Now the next hurdle was the game itself. I wrestled with several ideas. One of the games I've been in recently was a theme game, The Rejects, which I've mentioned (and shamelessly plugged) before. And enjoyed. A lot.

So I thought to myself, “well, hell, I can do this!”. Except, really, I couldn't. My best idea was called “The Tribe”, where the players are all members of the same monstrous race. The idea being that they were the survivors of their tribe, who were assaulted by the most insidious scourge in the world.

Adventurers!

It's a great concept, and I might run with it later, but in order for it to work, I realized I'd have to change a few things about the game, and player's expectations. Not a good idea for one's first attempt!

So then I decided to take an old, classic adventure and update it for the new edition. Ugh. That turned out to be a lot harder than I anticipated. About halfway through White Plume Mountain, I found myself back at the drawing board.

In the end, I realized the answer was simple. Keep it simple, stupid!

Secret of Mistvale is a fairly basic premise. The player characters find themselves trapped in a small community, far from the hub of civilization, by both weather and fate. And, of course, when things start going south, they are the ones the villagers turn to for help!

I hit most of the classic tropes with this one. The first encounter even takes place at an Inn! I really wanted to capture an 'old school' feel, and my main inspiration was “Terrible Trouble at Tragidore”, an adventure that came packaged with the 2nd Edition DM Screen.

Once I had the plotline down, the next important thing was the encounters themselves. As a player, nothing is more frustrating than not being able to accomplish anything on your turn. The way the game is designed, missing is fairly likely, or at least, not unlikely, no matter what level you are. One thing I noticed with the Essentials builds is that they tend to be more accurate than the 'standard' 4e classes.

It seems like WotC wants players to miss less often, which is something I'm perfectly happy with. So I kept a close eye on defenses for my enemies. Initially, I used Brutes, who have typically low defenses. I also cut their damage down a little bit, opting to instead give the enemies some interesting tactics.

The main opponent of the first encounter, for example, “Old Bill”, was a Leader who could bolster and even heal his allies. I feel this encounter was successful because it made the players think about how to approach it, rather than being a simple slugfest. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and it warmed my black heart to know that, weeks later, simply mentioning Old Bill was enough to elicit a comment of “F___ Old Bill!”.

The next stage was a Skills Challenge...well, that was the plan, at least. As I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge fan of Skills Challenges. I attempted to craft one that had multiple useable Skills, and with different results based on how well (if at all!) the players succeeded.

However, it's been said that “no well-thought out adventure has every survived contact with the player characters”, and this was definitely true here! In the end, the players sort of stumbled upon the next encounter, which had the same basic result anyways.

So for now, I'm opting to simply present problems, and let the players tell me how they want to deal with them. If they ask if they can use a Skill, and it seems relevant, I'll let them, and leave it at that. Of course, Skill encounters are part of the system, and do have some support. For example, a player may wish to take a Utility that grants them a bonus when using a Skill. As a DM, I have to allow that choice to be useful in some way!

I admit to having to adjust the second encounter on the fly, as well as realizing that not all monsters are created equal, regardless of level. The group's Mage made mincemeat out of the Minions with Beguiling Strands- as he was supposed to! Some DM's might be frustrated to see wave after wave of enemies fall to a single At-Will ability, but I firmly believe that players should succeed more often than not. It was a simple matter to give him another wave of minions to fry while I let the other players get in on the action!

I was less than impressed by the Insubstantial ability, however, which might as well read “this monster has double hit points for no good reason”. While having Necrotic resistance is expected of Undead, the combination of that resistance and insubstantial made the encounter more challenging than it needed to be for the party's Hexblade, whose At-Will attack deals, yep, Necrotic damage!

Really, defensive traits tend to simply bolster a monster for no good reason. Take a monster with Regeneration, for example. If, over the course of an encounter, the monster's regeneration means it takes one more hit to kill it, why not just give it more hit points right off the bat?

I can understand monsters that force you to use special tactics to beat, such as Swarms, but for those to work, the party needs to have the options needed to fend off such monsters in the first place! An insubstantial ghost, who is only vulnerable to radiant damage tends to give one or two party members, if any, a chance to shine, while the others grumble at their ineffectual attacks.

I'm kind of stuck for it with Mistvale, since the resistance the various enemies have is something of a plot point, but it's going to be somewhat rare in future adventures. And I certainly won't use insubstantial again without a good reason!

My next hurdle was how to handle treasure. I decided against the usual “you find a level 2 weapon”. Logically (and logistically), it makes sense- forcing players to acquire treasure they don't really want just wastes time. If they sell it to get the stuff they really need, then they're underpowered. On the other hand, one should have to jump through at least a few hoops to get the exact gear they want- otherwise everyone is perfectly optimized, and potentially overpowered.

My solution was to have the party gain set rewards, but let the players know that they need not sell items to get the things they really needed. I also tried to select items that would be useful to most characters. For example, the first items the party found were a neck slot item that provided resistance, and a magic long sword (as few melee characters can't use a long sword!).

I know that eventually the party will trip over a useless item, but once I've established that magic items can be bartered with NPC's, it should work out.

Well that's enough rambling for now- I might be running again as soon as Friday, so I need to make some tweaks. I'll talk about Mistvale more once I've managed to complete the adventure!

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I'm something of a 'mechanics guy'. The 'crunchy bits' of how a game functions intrigues me, both from a simulationist (how well the mechanic matches reality) and a gamist (how well-balanced the mechanic is within the framework of the game) perspective.

Often, mechanics that try and match reality tend to be somewhat over-complicated and even broken- simply put, the universe has a lot more variables running at any given time than anyone can keep track of.

So the best, and most balanced mechanics, are the simplest ones. And usually, the mechanics most divorced from 'reality'.

At both ends of the scale you get a lot of arguments. One of the features of 4e design is that the rules are made as simply as possible, using something that has been defined as “exception-based” design. There is a set of basic rules, which regulate the game. Unless a game element goes out of it's way to say it changes these rules, you always default to the basic rules.

For example:

“An attacker has combat advantage if flanking it's target.”

“A Dire Wolf has combat advantage if an ally is adjacent to it's target.”

Whenever you hear someone say “specific trumps general”, that's what they're talking about. In any case where you have a specific game element saying it does something that contradicts the rules, it wins. This is a concept M:tG players are very familiar with.

The rules tend to be fairly easy to grasp, and, I must admit, are very balanced. However, as a result, there's often an odd disconnect between what a game mechanic claims is happening vs. what actually does happen.

My first encounter with this occurred when I read the 'flavor text' of Natural Terrain Understanding, a Utility Power that allows me to grant my allies a tactical benefit. The text claimed I was pointing out ways my allies could use the terrain to their advantage.

Which is fine, save for the fact that my Ranger somehow lacked the ability to shut up and just use his knowledge to give himself a free shift and bonus AC!

This sort of thing trips up my brain from time to time, as I'm used to more simulationist gaming. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with 4e's approach- the game is easier to learn than past games I've encountered, and a lot of fun to play.

But it does have it's quirks, and that's what I'm here to talk about today.

1)Turns and Rounds:
There's some confusion here among a lot of players, and the reason is that these terms have been applied in very different ways during the history of Dungeons and Dragons. When I first learned the game, a “round” was about 6 seconds of time, in-universe. Everyone takes an action during the round.

A “turn” was actually ten rounds of combat, ie, a full minute.

These days, the definition of a round remains the same, but the definition of a turn is vastly different. When someone acts during a round, they are taking their “turn”. So it's my turn, your turn, the monster's turn- all of these will make up a full combat round.

Thus an ability that can be used “once per round” is just that. It's used, and cannot be used again until my next turn.

An ability that can be used “once each turn” can be used on each turn, mine, yours, etc., if it's conditions come up. One example of this is immediate actions vs. opportunity actions: I can make an immediate reaction/interrupt once per round, but I can make an opportunity action once each turn.

Well ok, there is one caveat to that- immediate reactions, interrupts, and opportunity actions can't be made on your own turn. You'd be surprised how often that comes up!

This is what made such a ruckus when errata was applied to the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability. Sneak Attack damage could now be applied once during each turn. That meant if you were granted an attack during someone else's turn, and you met the requirements of Sneak Attack, you could apply the bonus damage!

Now granted, outside of an Opportunity Attack, this doesn't come up often, but it did make certain powers that allowed a Rogue to attack when it wasn't their turn (like Riposte Strike) look a lot better!

An oddball situation came up the other day when I was running my first adventure. I had a player test-driving the new Sentinel Druid build, complete with a big old Bear for an animal companion. As written, when the Druid uses their Move action, the Bear takes a Move action at the same time.

Both Bear and Druid were attempting to move past the same opponent. The Druid had the Bear just run straight on ahead, and the Brute took the free hit. Then I noticed the Druid was using their movement to veer around the Brute.

“You don't have to do that, you know. He can't make another Opportunity Attack this turn.”

Game play stopped as everyone gave me their best “what huh?!” expression. Again, gamist rules vs. simulationist! But there are ways you can use this to your advantage. For example, let's say you have a ranged character with an enemy adjacent to them. Normally, if they make their ranged attack, they'll provoke an Opportunity Attack.

However, let's say a friendly Warlord provokes an attack on the same enemy by walking past him. If the enemy takes the attack, the Warlord can turn around and use Direct the Strike on the ranged hero- allowing him to fire a ranged basic attack without reprisal (well, from that enemy at least)!

It sounds confusing, and the reason is that it goes against our expectations of what should happen in combat. But it's an interesting tactic, simply because your enemies probably won't expect it!

2)Free Action Attack Powers

Some months back, errata was published that limited the use of Free Actions. I'll quote the Rules Compendium version here:

“A creature can take a free action to use an attack power only once per turn.” -Rules Compendium, page 194

This fixed some problems, but creates strange 'holes' in the rules. One of the sweeping changes made with Essentials errata and the Rules Compendium was the definition of powers. Specifically, the Rules Compendium states on page 89 that there are two types of Powers.

Attack Powers: these powers are used to damage or hinder others. Some attack powers have beneficial effects as well.

Utility Powers: these powers have a variety of uses, including granting bonuses. Some are useful only outside combat, and others are useful only in combat. Some utility powers can be used in any situation.

Prior to this update, there existed other kinds of powers, such as Feature Powers, such as those granted by your Class. Now, however, all Powers are simply one or the other. The Rules Compendium goes on to say that “If a power's type isn't stated, the power is an attack power if it includes an attack roll or it deals damage. Otherwise, it is a utility power.”.

If you care about how the rules work in a vacuum*, then these changes can wreak a lot of havoc.

*of course, no game exists in a vacuum. You have a DM, who serves to arbitrate the quirks of the rules, and, of course, your fellow players, who have intelligence enough to notice when something has gone awry, and can reach a consensus on making an ad hoc ruling they will be comfortable with.

Some interesting examples include invisibility effects. By default, if you're invisible, that's that, but some invisibility mechanics come with a limitation: “breaks if you make an attack”. This is a familiar limit for long-time D&D players, and it used to be the default for all forms of invisibility (which sometimes trips up people when you are invisible, but can attack and remain unseen).

This is an example of a “legacy” rule. It may balance out a power, but it's mostly there to evoke a sense of nostalgia in the old school gamer. To make the game feel more like “D&D”. But what, exactly, is an attack?

This is hotly debated, and a lot of people simply default to “using an Attack Power”. Well that seems logical. Except...

Some people consider the Swordmage's 'Aegis of Assault' to be an Attack Power. It doesn't require an attack roll, but the power can grant a melee basic attack to the Swordmage. And, as it happens, the Warlord Power, Direct the Strike, which grants a melee basic attack to an ally is, you guessed it, an Attack Power.

Which begs the question: is an Assault Swordmage breaking an invisibility effect by simply Marking their enemy?

Now, I don't think “making an attack” necessarily means “using an Attack Power”. I know of Utility Powers that can both inflict damage as well as grant bonus attacks. But you can see how this could trip people up.

But now I'm going to talk about the 500 lb. Gorilla in the room.

Limiting players to one attack each turn granted by a free action was intended to prevent the abuse of certain powers that let players attack as a free action. It, among other things, prevents a Warlord from using Direct the Strike, using an Action Point, and using Direct the Strike again to grant the same ally a bonus attack.

A character could benefit from two Warlords using Direct the Strike on different turns, however. As an interesting aside, this also means you can't use Hypnotism on a creature to make him attack his buddy, and use an Action Point to make him do it again!

Because, you see, a “melee basic attack” is considered to be an Attack Power under the current rules (Rules Compendium, page 66). A lot of players don't like this rule, because they feel it breaks more things than it fixes. And so they scoured the lists of Powers, looking for a good example.

Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms gave them their answer. The Scout build for the Ranger Class has an At-Will ability called Dual Weapon Attack. It's a Free Action that grants them a bonus attack with their off-hand weapon if they hit with their main weapon. And sure enough, it has reminder text:

Special: You can use this power only once per round.

But wait, there's more! The Scout also has an Encounter Attack Power, called 'Power Strike'. It's used as a Free Action, and increases the damage of a melee basic attack that hits. Oops.

Yes, that's right, as written, you can't use Power Strike and Dual Weapon Attack. But it gets weirder!

Imagine a Half-Orc Scout. His Racial ability, Furious Assault, is practically the exact same ability as Power Strike! But what kind of Power is it?

As of this writing, I'm not sure, but I'm trying to find out. As I'm trying to teach a friend how to play 4e, and he's playing a Scout, this question has a certain relevance. I had him make an Essentials character because I felt it would bring less rules to the fore at once, thus making it easier to teach the game, and make it more fun.

And, for the most part, I feel that was a good decision. I just don't feel that attempting to explain to him why he can't use Power Strike and Dual Weapon Attack in the same turn would be helpful in the slightest, and, to be honest, I don't see how it unbalances things either.

On the other hand, should he reach third-level, he'll get another use of Power Strike, and that's when the necessity of the “free action attack rule” becomes more apparent- to prevent someone from using two Power Strikes with the same turn- or even the same attack!

Hopefully, I'll have more answers by the next installment, in which I tackle two combat options that can confuse even veteran gamers- readying and delaying actions!

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And two, I've reconnected with an old flame. No, Cupid hasn't managed to hit me with an arrow lately- much like a dragon, my defenses only increase with time. I imagine he'll need a nat 20 to hitch me up with a girl at this point!

But I digress. Dungeons and Dragons remains my first true love. We've been through a lot, the game and I, ever since I discovered it back in Junior High. And despite the occasional break-ups and betrayals, we always get back together in the end.

As I've mentioned before, 4e felt like a betrayal to me. I'd spent a lot of time mastering the 3.5 ruleset, and purchasing many products. I was comfortable with the game, and I felt that it could only get better. Unfortunately, Hasbro/WotC had other plans.

Really, it probably was time. Third Edition had done more than revolutionize the game- in a way, it had jump-started a flagging RPG industry, and gotten everyone excited about gaming again. Just about everybody and their brother had written a third-party d20 supplement or game in the hopes of hitching their wagons to a star- and failed, more often than not.

The '.5' Edition had prolonged the inevitable, but the fact is, it was starting to lose money. You can only print so many new books, and people had pretty much everything they really needed to run games from then until the next thousand years. So something had to change.

Some of us weren't quite ready. I'd probably still be a Grognard living in a cave, shaking my fist at Hasbro/WotC's shenanigans if Tim hadn't introduced me to WeeBee Gamers. I've had several gaming groups over the years, but in the past, I always had to take the good with the bad.

For every awesome gamer, you had a guy who put your teeth on edge in one way or another. But for the first time, I was in a group with no bad apples in sight! Re-learning the game was rough at first, but it didn't take long until I actually felt like I knew what I was doing.

But then a new wrinkle appeared on the horizon- Essentials. WotC swears up and down that Essentials isn't '4.5', but a lot of parallels can be drawn between 3.5 and Essentials. I still don't know what Essentials ultimately means for D&D (does anyone?), but so far, I can say this.

It's a good thing. Each of the Essentials classes offers something pretty cool and awesome, and the 'stripped-down' approach makes them easy, and even fun to play! I won't lie- I like having a lot of choices, and so far, the new builds don't have as many as I'd like, but I can and will play Essentials characters now and in the future.

Plus, Essentials comes in handy for something else.

I want to be a Dungeonmaster again, and to run adventures for my friends. Essentials offers me the option to easily teach 4e to new players, and I plan on taking advantage of that fact. Now granted, I still have reservations about how the new builds will function outside of Heroic, but it's not like I'm ready to DM for Paragon Tier anyways!

At the end of the day, the only thing I truly despise about Essentials is the magic item rarity rules. But I'll save that rant for another time.

So what's this about running D&D again?

After several false starts, I finally completed my first adventure, 'The Secret of Mistvale'. It's fairly straightforward, really, but I'm still quite proud of it. It's a work in progress, like any good game is, as I continue to discover what elements of the game are enjoyable- and which ones aren't.

Really, it comes down to one thing. Nobody likes feeling ineffective.

I mean, we live in the real world. Often, events occur that we have little to no control over. It can be downright maddening. Those of us who game, do so for a variety of reasons. One reason I value highly is the ability to set the real world (and it's problems) aside.

When we play, we like to feel we are in control of our destinies. Unfortunately, a variety of game mechanics exist that take that feeling away. For me, it really boils down to two things.

1: Action Denial.

This exists in many forms. Pretty much, when it's your turn, and you can't do what you want to do, that always sucks. Now, the Dungeon Master needs to employ some action denial, but not all forms are created equal. For example, I can live with being knocked prone, slowed, forced to deal with rough terrain, and even immobilized- so long as I can still attack or otherwise support my allies!

A monster that slows, or even immobilizes you, leaving you out of range of any opponents, is pretty ridiculous. Now granted, most characters have a ranged option they can employ, but not all do, so it's something you need to watch out for.

What I find truly ridiculous, however, are the dazed and stunned conditions. I'll probably never stun a player character, as I find not being able to act in any way to be the epitome of 'not fun'. Dazed, on the surface, seems ok. You can move or attack. Unlike immobilized, you have a choice. And choices are good!

Except dazed also prevents you from making certain kinds of actions that I feel players should always be allowed to make. Such as opportunity attacks and immediate actions. Sure, at first, you don't get many of these. But as you rise in level, you start getting more and more of them. By Paragon tier, very little seems to actually be going on during your turn!

But most of these kinds of powers exist to help protect the players. Like reducing damage from an incoming attack, or avoiding it completely! So I'm leery about removing these options wholesale.

2: Missing.

I hate to miss. I mean, I really do. I understand that missing is part of the game, and sometimes it just happens, but a lot of times, you only get one thing you can do each turn. And that action is often tied to an attack roll of some kind. So when you roll the dice, and they fail you, it can feel like you're just wasting your time.

The dice gods are fickle, and they can turn on anyone, at any time. But I've put a lot of thought into figuring out ways to avoid missing. It's fun to have a double-digit attack bonus at level 1, but you shouldn't need that to have fun!

Take Chuck's D&D campaign, for example. Playing the Rejects is a lot of fun. And trust me, we miss- a lot! Now, part of that is, of course, using non-optimal race choices, but as I proved with my Slayer, you can make almost anything work, with enough effort. The question is, however, how much effort should really be required?

Not a lot, really. A character with a 16-18 stat, using a weapon with +2 proficiency (or attacking something other than AC) should still tend to hit on a 10. If someone optimizes, they get to succeed more often, and that's just fine. But everyone deserves a certain modicum of success.

The problem is, not all monsters are built around that assumption. A level 1 Soldier can have an AC ranging from 16-18, and that's fairly difficult for “Joe the Average Hero” to hit.

Now some will argue that this isn't a game about playing the average guy. But if someone makes a halfway reasonable character, I see no reason to penalize them for not being “Captain Stupendous”! Now sometimes you're going to fight Soldiers, and that's just fine. By adjusting your tactics, you can deal with high defenses.

But I think, in most fights, if Joe Average swings, he should hit. A level 1 Brute, for example, by contrast, has a much lower AC, and Joe shouldn't miss very often. Of course, Brutes hit like a truck, but, as motivators to work with your party members go, I prefer “He hit me once and I'm bloodied!” over “I can't hit this guy!”.

Wednesday Encounters had us face a dragon, which turned out to be a lot more fun than I was expecting. I give Chuck the lion's share of the credit for this, and the fact that we had a larger party certainly helped as well. One thing that I noticed right off the bat though, was that the dragon didn't really remove any options from the table.

Our tactics and abilities worked just fine! Sure, the Dragon got two actions per turn, and pretty much was guaranteed to go first. And yeah, like most of the newer solos, the thing was a controller's nightmare. But really, it just popped up, did damage, and dove back into the water.

At first, this sounds like a recipe for disaster. People with lower initiative had very few opportunities to attack the dragon. At least, as long as they remained locked into their initiative sequence. Now granted, initiative-changing maneuvers are usually a big headache for all concerned, but all it really took was to identify the areas the dragon could be, and employ a little goaltending.

Or you could take the heroic route and just dive into the water after the dragon! I tend to be too cautious to try such a stunt, but we had a reckless Barbarian who wasn't, and it was epic.

I still don't see myself using a lot of solos when I run, but at least it was cool to see a solo that was both fun and challenging. It didn't need to deny us actions, or be unhittable. It didn't need to cheaply shrug off conditions either (even though it certainly could!).

About the only thing it really needed was a few more hit points, but in a Striker-heavy party, that's going to be an issue.

On the flipside, this encounter could easily have been a serious headache for a controller or defender (of which we had neither). Being able to save multiple times per turn, as well as shrug off the more common effects could have been quite frustrating. Further, it would have been tough to find good placement as a Knight or Cavalier.

And marking becomes somewhat less than relevant when your enemy has an area attack it can use. But no encounter can be perfect- rock can beat scissors all day long, but inevitably, paper must come along.

And I think that's the ultimate lesson. It's ok to have an encounter that challenges some of the players, as long as the others can pick up the slack. As long as everyone gets a moment to shine, the game remains fun.

Which is my New Year's resolution. To make the game as fun as possible for everyone in 2011!

Related articles

• My rant on WotC's new Character Builder from Stargazer's World (stargazersworld.com)
• I Am Too Old To Get Carded from Axe & Hammer (axe-n-hammer.blogspot.com)
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What is Gamma World?

It's a fair question, I think. We're told it's a variation of the D&D game, and it uses very similar rules. But it's not really compatible either- Gamma World PC's scale up much more quickly, adding their full level to just about everything, even damage. Sometimes they even add a multiplier of their level to a game element!

The various origins aren't really balanced- most do seem balanced against each other, but occasionally you see things that are obviously better or worse than the baseline. Given the random nature of the game, however, this does tend to work out fairly well- if your character is weak, you probably won't make it, and it doesn't take long to generate their replacement.

The characters also level quickly- the adventures in the first set will get you to level 3, and I'm told that Famine in Far-Go's encounters will get you to level 6, should you survive.

And that's the real test of this game. Your characters seem pretty tough and powerful at first. But the game doesn't kid around, and chances are, you're going to die. A lot.

The game really feels like a throwback to Gygaxian-style design. You never know how awesome (or not) your character will be, and the challenges are nasty enough that you shouldn't get too attached to your character. As you put character after character through the meat grinder, however, you're guaranteed to eventually get a good character, or learn how to step up your game and play smarter.

Or both.

Gamma World is simpler to pick up and play than D&D. Character generation is quick, and a lot of fun. The rules are stripped-down as well, although the format of the rulebooks leaves a little to be desired- you're going to spend a lot of time hunting down rules for how things work.

If you've played D&D, you can pick this up quickly, but as a jumping-on point, Gamma World has a few issues. A veteran player will understand when to use their second wind, how to best utilize their powers and tech, and be ready to handle the hard challenges.

A new player will just die until something clicks. Old schoolers will grin and probably say that's the way it should be, but I'm not too sure. New players need to be encouraged, not punished for not having learned the finer points of play.

The Alpha Mutations can be a lot of fun, although sometimes they aren't all that. Still, constantly being able to try out different powers beats spending an action point for an extra attack! Omega Tech is a lot of fun too, if somewhat difficult to rely on.

A Gamma World campaign practically writes itself, and the game is, by it's nature, self-correcting. Anything that's too weak or too overpowered will likely remove itself from play before too long. The downside, however, is the fact that the game quickly reaches it's zenith- at level 10, your character is roughly analogous to a Mid-Paragon Tier character from D&D, and there's really no room for advancement.

You can make the monsters tougher, but the characters have all their origin powers, a “Paragon”-style ability, and likely tons of Omega Tech devices. So where to go from there?

Gamma World is, as a I said, a lot of fun, but it just doesn't feel right. It's got too much going for it to be a 'beer & pretzels' game, and yet, there's not enough here for it to be a full RPG. I think that if they had, instead of trying to make yet another flavor of 'D&D Lite', they could have made Gamma World a full campaign setting, and been fairly successful.

But there's yet hope for the game. If enough people buy Gamma World products, perhaps Wizards will polish the rules, errata the rogue elements, and expand upon the premise to make this just as fulfilling of a game as D&D itself.

After all these years, Gamma World deserves to be more than a footnote in D&D history. If Gamma World succeeds, perhaps we will one day see new versions of Star Frontiers, Boot Hill, Metamorphosis Alpha, and Top Secret?

It's a nice thing to dream about.

Related articles

• Secrets of the Gamma World reboot [Gaming] (io9.com)
• Five Reasons to Love Gamma World from Sly Flourish (slyflourish.com)
• Famine in Far-Go Review from Points of Light (daegames.blogspot.com)