[D&D RAW] Hiding, Invisibility & Other Sneaky Business, Part 6: DM Considerations

This is the 6th part of a running series on Hiding in my new column for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules. You can read the previous post here. I will post a complete index of all the posts of the series at the end of the series.

In the previous post of this series, I looked into some ways that a monster can detect a hiding character (and vice versa) and how their senses could work within the Hiding and Unseen Attackers and Targets rules.

For this post, I'm going to compile all that I've discovered about hiding and give a few notes on what should a DM think about when designing encounters or when handling scenarios when characters want to hide. To go further in this post, I would assume that you have read each prior posts to this one.

Why does a DM need to have these considerations? Well, for starters, the DM's role when it comes to hiding is imperative, as mentioned in the Hiding rules itself:

The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. Also, the question isn't whether a creature can see you when you're hiding. The question is whether it can see you clearly (Errata V1.1).

Read the emphasis as mine, but it highlights the importance of the DM when it comes to hiding. While most DMs could easily make their own rulings with a hand wave (they are the DM afterall), but hopefully what this series has helped you to think is that hiding can be a complex thing that needs some thought put into it.

So what does a DM need to consider when it comes to hiding? Here are some of my considerations.

Appropriate Hiding

The first thing that I think a DM should consider is whether there are any appropriate circumstances for any character to hide at any given location that the party finds themselves in. That might sound like a simply saying 'yes' or 'no' when a player assumes his character can make a Dexterity (Stealth) to hide, but I think there should be more to it than that when it comes to some of the rules.

If you remember your Hiding rules, the first main condition of whether a character can hide is if they are seen or not. One important thing to note also in the first condition is that the character cannot be seen by the creature he is hiding from, not everyone in the location. It is highly possible to allow a character to hide from someone who can't see the character, but could be seen by someone else.

Therefore, hiding is relative. When a player says they want their character to hide, it's best to ask the player who does the character want to hide from, and taking their perspective to determine if the creature can see the character or not.

Other than that, what else can give appropriate circumstances for hiding?

Obscurity

One of the first ways a character cannot be seen is if they are obscured by the lighting of the location. An example of this can be found in the Vision and Light rules (Page 65 in the Basic Rules or Page 183 in the Player's Handbook), but this is derived from the Invisible condition (Appendix A of the Basic Rules and Player's Handbook).

From the Invisible condition:

• An Invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of Hiding, the creature is Heavily Obscured. The creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves. 

From the Vision and Light rules on Heavily Obscured:

A heavily obscured area - such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage - blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition. A heavily obscured area doesn't blind you, but you are effectively blinded when you try to see something obscured by it (Errata V1.1).

Which leads you to the Blinded condition (also in Appendix A of the Basic Rules and Player's Handbook):

• A Blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any Ability Checks that requires sight.

So you can see how these rules and conditions are interrelated and make for appropriate circumstances that lets you hide. So the available lighting of a location where the the party are can help inform whether there are any circumstances for hiding. You can find the different types of lighting that determine the obscurity of an area in the rest of the Vision and Light rules.

Do remember there are features (Mask of the Wild) and feats (Skulker) that doesn't require a character to be heavily obscured in order to hide.

One exception to this I would say is for monsters with Blindsight. They should not be affected by the obscurity of the hiding character, but a character can still hide from them behind another element...

Cover

You might think that obscurity is the only way a character needs to hide (since it has all the rule correlation that comes with it), but it's easy to forget that characters can hide simply just behind Cover (page . 

Although there are no official association that I can find in the Basic Rules and the Player's Handbook between cover and hiding, but if you remember in the previous post, you can see that cover comes into play when it comes to hiding from a monster with Blindsight.  

So this makes another consideration of a DM. If you are trying to encourage or allow hiding in a location, you should be aware of the cover that are available. The question that you will need to decide for yourself is in what degree of cover would you allow a character to make a hide.

Personally, I would only allow a character with Total Cover to try to hide, since they can't be targeted by an attack or spell, but anything less the cover confers bonus to AC and saving throws so that means they can be seen.  

Now that I have pointed out some of the notes that a DM should consider, hopefully it would help you to design better encounters or make better rulings on hiding in your game. Of course, the ones that I mentioned in this post are just those found in the rules, and as a DM you are open to other circumstances to allow a character to hide. If in doubt, remember that the guiding principle of deciding whether there is an appropriate circumstance can be simply asked with one question: "Can the character be seen?"

We're almost there. I think I have covered pretty much the bases when it comes to hiding and how it works out for players and DMs. For my last post of this series, I will be compiling all that I've mentioned in the series thus far into a summary to give you the whole picture for DMs and players about Hiding.

[D&D RAW] Hiding, Invisibility & Other Sneaky Business, Part 7: Summary

Last updated: 9/7/2016   

{Quest Log} The news of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

Just wanted to post some thoughts and update which doesn't fit into a tweet and to remind the RPG Bloggers Network undertaker that this blog is still alive and is not waiting to be raised yet.

So after nearly a six month hiatus from gaming except for a sprinkle of one-shot sessions, I've finally managed to end up getting back into the DM's hotseat once again.

The main reason for this isn't because my work schedule has settled down somewhat but because one of the players would be leaving us for about a year, due to work, and he wanted to get his hands dirty with some dice before leaving. Plus, I was offered to run a game since our resident GM wants to play again.

This was a fine opportunity to get back into DMing but not the more permanent basis which I had hoped for.

The plan is to run the sessions in January and would probably last for two weekly sessions. So modules are out of the question and I'm thinking of going for an extended delve or two separate delves each week.

The game would be 4e and I'm looking to set the players at 5th level with the default party size of five, probably set in Eberron.

At the moment, I'm really not sure what sort of adventure I would like to run, so I'm soliciting for any kind reader to throw me a bone so that my dog-brain will have something to gnaw (though I've been looking up at the Order of the Emerald Claw a lot last night).

That's all to say that the news of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

Is there an authentic experience?

Recently an old groupmate of mine has just returned from his studies in England and has shown an interest to start DMing again. Back then we used to play 3.5 but he's eager to try his hand at 4E this time. So he's been gathering up some players to run a one-shot this week.

One of the players that will be playing in the game is a friend of mine who has observed us play 4E on many occasions before but this would be his first try at any form of RPG.

While I think this is a great thing since a potential new player is entering into the fold but I do have some little qualms. Mainly because I have played under my old groupmate as a DM before and he has an....'unorthodox' way of running his games.

What concerns me the most is that my DM groupmate is a real rules hacker. I remember when we played in one of his 3.5 campaigns, he had hacked the rules with his own houserules that it felt like we were playing a different game altogether.

I know every DM is bound to have their own houserules and it wouldn't really bother me if it was minor rule changes for the sake of running the game smoothly. But I'm starting to worry what sort of effect this would have on the new player, seeing that this will be his first impression of the game where he gets his hands dirty with the mechanics.

If his first impression is wrapped into something that doesn't have any resemblance to what is being played by RAW, he might fall into the trap of 'one wayism' and it would be harder to 'undo' the damage rather than preventing it in the first place.

So my real question is, is there really such a thing as an authentic gaming experience that should be introduced to new players? Should there be some kind of 'base model' of gaming, so that new players will eventually learn what he likes and dislikes about each DM's style that he plays under and will choose accordingly? For the benefit of the greater gaming community?

Another question would be what makes an authentic experience of gaming (or in this case, 4E)? Do you think it's possible to run any RPG system without any houserules, whether from the trivial to the outrageous? Or there's another way to teach RPGs to a new player where he learns to tell the difference earlier on?

Tell me what you think in the comments.

Getting back on track

It's been ages since I've last posted here and I'm putting this post to remind myself that I need to start getting back to blogging. To explain my absence, I can only say that I've started a full time job in the past few months and, as expected, it has taken its toll on my game and blogging time.

Now that I'm gradually getting used to the fast-pace and long hours of the job and knowing what to expect out of it, I'm finally able to settle down and try to strike a balance between my personal life and gamer life.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to refurbish the furniture around here, so I hope you also like the new theme I've put up.

Another reason I'm putting up this post because during my hiatus, it has given my plenty of time to reflect on what I want to do and set new directions.

When I started the blog 2 years ago, I already had in mind a few things that I wanted to focus on, particularly about GMing, my personal styles and preferences with the occasional sprinkle of gaming news to inform my local gaming community.

After joining the RPG Bloggers Network, that focus shifted to almost the opposite direction. There I read numerous posts with great content that contained pieces of advice on gaming that it had become almost like every gamer blog should be done this way.

That's where I made my mistake, I conformed; conformed to the high standards that is the RPGBN that was just too high for me to reach with my limited experience, both as a GM and as a gamer.

To be honest, I took it like it was a competition amongst bloggers to produce the best content or to attract the most readers when you are surrounded by peers that emphasised on these things.

Over the course of time, I realized that I don't have the financial, skill and knowledge to make the cut which lead to the slow death of my enthusiasm and attachment to the community.

During my hiatus, I still continued lurking around forums and other blogs and I came to a realization. RPGs is not a game where everyone can have an equal opinion, the same goes with every arguments about editions, old school vs new school and or what rule is broken or unbalanced.

Every gaming experience on one table is unique for its own existence. We can discuss similarities between our games but we don't necessarily share them.

There were many things I wanted to say about various subjects but was too afraid that I would be disagreed by my fellow RPG bloggers, I was too careful with my opinions which partly became a barrier to express myself.

I don't intend for that to happen again.

So I hereby set a new course for the blog and what you can expect to see more and less in my future posts.

• The direction will be more personal than communal from now on, which means that you'll see more 'I's and 'my's than 'We's and 'our's. Every post that I make from now on is more likely to be a personal opinion, despite how controversial or stupid it may sound and is not trying to conform itself to any kind of acceptable standard (if there was any). What I say is my own and only applies to me.


• Post schedule is, at the moment, still uncertain but will try to stick along the lines of once weekly.


• Due to my work schedule, I'm planning to drop some features namely the Questing's Readings because my time to read, decide and compile which post makes it to the post is limited.


• On the other hand, I want to see how my personal and gaming life is progressing, so features such as the {Quest Log} might be back more often. New features are also in the works but you can be sure it's something more personally relevant.


• I'm adding a rant label so to anyone who wish to avoid the occasional bile that comes out from a rancid gamer, I have placed the labels at the top of my posts so that you won't be caught unaware. You have been warned.


• I'm adding comment moderation. Partly to have control over the spam that I'm starting to get, partly to avoid all out war in my blog based on my discretion.


• Gaming news might appear once in a while but as far as I'm concerned, Word of Wizards is dead in the water from now on (if it wasn't apparent months ago). This has something to do with my severed detachment with 4E in terms of news (I'm sure Wyatt will understand).


• I might get really frustrated at times and might incline towards trolling. If I make any rude remarks with links or mentions to names, blogs, forums, organizations and thereof, please be ensured that all is done in good faith with tongue in cheek. You don't have to take my personal opinions too seriously (.......yet).

That's all for now and I will inform you if I do add more but I think these are sufficient to inform my fundamentals and the expected change of tone and content that this blog is going to have from now on.

So now that this is off my chest, it's good to be back and roll some initiative.

Burning Question - What Do You Look Forward to the Most in a New 4E Supplment?

Although splatbooks and supplements are not necessary to run a game but they have been one of the mainstay in the D&D product line, often expanding the horizon of players and DMs to further improve their game. Since the launch of 4E, these are the supplements that have released for DMs and players alike

Players

• Martial Power
• Arcane Power
• Divine Power
• Adventurer's Vault
• Forgotten Realms Player's Guide
• Eberron Player's Guide

DMs

• Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons
• Open Grave
• Manual of the Planes
• Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
• Eberron Campaign Guide

Each of the player supplements have offered new builds, powers, paragon paths, feats, equipments and the occasional new rules which is mainly mechanics and crunch.

On the other hand, DM supplements are usually packed with useful information that is mostly comprised of fluff, new monsters, ideas and advises for encounters, plot hooks and one or two new features with rules to be implemented into their game.

So this week's Burning Question is;

What Do You Look Forward to the Most in a New 4E Supplement?

Do you prefer new feats over powers? New builds over paragon paths? Or always watch out for any new rules options as a player first?

Similarly, if you are buying a DM supplement what are looking forward first? New fluff about the setting (even those for the generic setting) or new crunchy monsters? Advice and ideas over plot hooks? Or you rather like seeing new rules that you can use or bend to suit your game?

Personally, I prefer DM supplements than player supplements because I'm a fluff addict. I love to read more about my favorite settings and try to devise plot hooks out of them. While I don't mind the occasional advice and ideas, the thing that I look at last are the monsters and new rules.

As a player, the first thing that I'll probably want more is new builds. New rules would probably come second before powers and feats.

Share your comments whether as a player, a DM or both! What do you think makes or breaks the new supplement for you?

Word of Wizards - 1/8/09

Excerpts from this week shows a couple of new magical weapons suited for the primal classes and a couple of rods useful against undead and formorians from Adventurer's Vault 2.

For miniatures, we get to see the Remorhaz, Adult Brown Dragon, Hezrou and a couple of new draconians and goblins. Although the previews series concludes this week, but watch out for the remaining miniatures from the Legendary Evils set in this month's upcoming Preview for August and Beyond.

The cleric's role as the healer in the party is now but history in 4E. With the recent release of Divine Power, take a look back at the evolution of the cleric through the editions to see what has changed and what has not.

Other than the usual goods, Wizards have also made a couple of announcements.

The winners have been decided for the Don't Split the Party contest which reunites a gaming group that has been playing together since highschool and college but have been separated by circumstances since 1993. Wizards will be awarding them with badges and all expense paid accommodations to this year's GenCon which is happening in August.

The beta version of the D&D Monster Builder is now available to DDI subscribers which allows DMs to access and modify any of the published 2,500 monsters including ones from Monster Manual 2. This tool is the first in an array of future tools from DDI's online D&D Adventure Tools but, unlike the Character Builder, will not have a demo version and is exclusively for anyone with a DDI subscription account.

If you have a copy of Elder Evils, you might want to check out the 4E conversion for the encounters in the book by Wizards which includes a separate pdf for statblocks.

As for the monthly magazine wrap-up, Wizards have posted the art and map galleries for this month's issue of Dungeon and Dragon. One remarkable difference in this month's gallery is that Wizards have included marked and unmarked versions of their maps which is hopefully something that they would continue to do for future issues.

This week's rundown.

Monday (27/7/09)
Adventurer's Vault 2 Excerpts: Weapons

Tuesday (28/7/09)
Legendary Evils Preview 5

Wednesday (29/7/09)
Never Split the Party Contest Winner
4th Edition Conversion: Elder Evils
Dungeon 168 Art Gallery
Dungeon 168 Map Gallery

Thursday (30/7/09)
D&D Monster Builder Beta Launch
Legendary Evils Preview 6

Friday (31/7/09)
D&D Alumni: The Cleric
Dragon 377 Art Gallery
Adventurer's Vault 2 Excerpts: Implements

The editorial calendar for August is out and next week, we'll be seeing more excerpts from Adventurer's Vault 2. Insiders who are also fans of psionics would be delighted to see the Githzerai making its 4E debut as a playable race this coming Monday.

Word of Wizards - 25/7/09

This week, Wizards has started the preview excerpts from Adventurer's Vault 2 by showcasing a new type of magical items called Immurements. Each immurement is practically a portable terrain that can be unleashed onto an area until the end of the encounter.

There's a couple of new armor and shields previewed as well that comes with a backstory and possible plot hooks to implement them as treasures in your game.

With the release of the Eberron Campaign Guide and Seekers of the Ashen Crown adventure module, Wizards has also posted up their respective art and map galleries.

On the miniatures preview, we are shown a range of Foulspawns miniatures that will be in Legendary Evils as well as the huge Ultimate Tyrant.

Voting for the ENnies has already started and Wizards are looking for your votes for their nominated products that will be competing for Product of the Year, Best Game, Best Rules, Best Monster of Adversary, Best Aid or Accessory, Best Adventure, Best Miniature Product and Best Cover Art and other categories.

So if you really want to support Wizards, head on over to the ENnies voting booth and place your vote before August 1st.

This week's rundown.

Monday (20/7/09)
Adventurer's Vault 2 Excerpts: Immurements
Eberron Campaign Guide Art Gallery
Eberron Campaign Guide Map Gallery

Tuesday (21/7/09)
Legendary Evils Preview 4
2009 ENnie Award Nominees

Wednesday (22/7/09)
Seekers of the Ashen Crown Art Gallery
Seekers of the Ashen Crown Map Gallery

Friday (24/7/09)
Adventurer's Vault 2 Excerpts: Armor - Story Items

Next week is expected to have some interesting content with more excerpts, a podcast episode and a D&D Alumni article.

{Quest Log} Let's This Party Started Part 5

In my previous entry, the players were just ready to go into the final encounter. Last week, we finally wrapped up that encounter with a session that took a good chunk of 1 to 2 hours. The following is a summary of what happened and my thoughts on the session.

The Final Showdown
At this point since it was intended to be a short session and a couple of players were running short on time, all the plot had been thrown out of the window and the PCs just wanted to get their weekly dosage of 4E combat. In case, you had forgotten who the PCs are, here's a little recap for you.

• Zed, level 1 human rogue
• Durnkash, level 1 dragonborn fighter
• Narakh Nukem, level 1 dragonborn warlock
• Chant, level 1 tiefling bard

The PCs burst into the final room with a tough climatic fight ahead of them. This was what they were up against;

EL 4

• 1 Hobgoblin Commander (Level 5 Soldier/Leader)
• 1 Bugbear Warrior (Level 5 Brute)
• 4 Hobgoblin Grunt (Level 3 Minion)
• 1 Hobgoblin Warcaster (Level 3 Controller/Leader)

Once initiative was rolled, the rogue and fighter went in first and wrecked havoc on the enemy lines, heading straight for the warcaster. This was followed by the warlock who hurled his dragon breath but it only managed to kill one minion while the rest of the enemies made their save.

The PCs were getting a big head start and things were looking well for them when I saw that they have penetrated the enemy lines, breaking their formation which ruined my initial tactical plans, separating the hobgoblins to benefit from their Phalanx Soldier ability. I certainly wasn't expecting the PCs to break through the lines and head straight for the warcaster which they assumed was the easiest to take out.

Then things turned out for the worse once I started moving my minions around, followed by the Bugbear Warrior and the Commander flanking the dragonborn and knocking him down in a single round.

The warcaster held up pretty well on its own despite being engaged in melee combat early on. Shock Staff was a real pain and I was surprised to see that it could deal so much damage.

Things pretty much went downhill for the PCs after that with them rolling badly and my dices were getting hot. Sad to say, despite the PCs efforts, the session ended with a TPK.

Post-Session Wrap Up
At the end of the session, I talked to the players about what went wrong and here are some of the reasons which I felt were the main factors of their defeat.

1. Initiative Mess Up
I was the one holding onto the initiative which I had written down on a notepad. During several rounds I messed up the order of who goes first, sometimes resulting in some characters having their turn skipped completely. Although I gave them extra turns to compensate for those lost turns, I think this was one major deciding factor which caused them to lost a tactical edge and the encounter overall.

This was clearly my fault in the encounter and while I know there are many ways to overcome this, I will be looking for an alternative that best suits my group.


2. Bad Dice Day
As weird as things like this shouldn't happen, it does. One of the players had just bought a new set of dices and while we were playfully rolling the d20 before the session started, it didn't roll any higher than 15 with most of the rolls being within 1 to 5. This carried over into the session and it was enough to get this player believe in dice superstitions. Hopefully he won't punish them in a microwave or something.

On the other hand, things could also get worse if the DM was having a good dice day. My minions went through two dragon breaths from the dragonborns in the party and each breath only managed to take down one minion. Damage dices rolled above average on average which dished out lots of damage with the bugbear warrior rolling d12 and the warcaster shock staff (which recharged on every turn btw) rolling 2d10s.

Thankfully this was only a one-shot but I have seen bad dice days ruining the mood and energy of the session and sometimes even cause the death of campaigns.

So, yeah. We pinned down one major factor of the loss to crappy dice-rolling.


3. Taking a Breath
One question that I posed to them after the session was how ready were their characters for the encounter. Most of them were slightly wounded when they decided to barge in with just a few hitpoints shy from their total.

I don't know if going into a tough encounter with just a few hitpoints away from your max makes you unprepared for combat but after how the session went, I'm inclined to think that a even a single hitpoint difference is going to make a huge difference. At least that's my theory.

Another underlying factor that I might consider is that the PCs didn't spend their Second Wind throughout the combat. I'm not sure if they were taken out too quickly to let them use it or they were aiming too hard to take down the warcaster or the commander. But forgetting to spend your Second Wind when things aren't looking good is probably one way to swing the combat your way so it's best not to forget using them.

It was still a great session in the end despite the TPK. I think the players have learned a thing or two about combat in 4E which seems to be more tactical than cinematic in the sense that the PCs would have to think more in numbers than in dramatic effects.

I certainly learned a bit more too and would think that the warcaster would make a good melee opponent without the commander.

After this one-shot, the group decided that we would like to play in a long term campaign. I proposed that we go through the WotC modules as I try to string them together into a campaign and we would be char gening this coming weekend.

So stay tune for our next adventure starting with H1 Keep on the Shadowfell!

If you have any thoughts about how this session went or have any suggestions on correcting any mistakes that we have done, please feel free to drop a comment! We would love to hear your thoughts!

Word of Wizards - 18/7/09

Although there's barely been any new excerpts coming out this week, Wizards have not been lax at all to leave the website high and dry. There's still been great content, previews and interviews on the upcoming miniatures, novels and encounter stat blocks to use for your game.

First up, Wizards have posted up the Eberron adventure that was given out on Free RPG Day, Khyber's Harvest as a free download. So if you missed out on getting a hard copy of it or none of your FLGS were participating on the event, at least you can now get a soft copy of it. What better time to use it, now that the Eberron Campaign Guide will be released next week.

At the same time, the art gallery for Divine Power is also up. Despite there being a few recognizable reused art, it still has a great range of new art that will be useful as character portraits and illustrations.

This month's Vicious Venues is centered on the Sunfields, a patch of land owned by a jealous farmer. Although it might sound harmless at first but wait till the PCs cross the farmer and his not-so typical bees which can lead to a brutal encounter.

If having bears and bees tearing you apart isn't really your thing, then you might be interested in some pulpy encounters from Seekers of the Ashen Crown, the Eberron module that will be released next month.

This week's miniature previews was mainly blue. The color blue that is shared by the Talon Slaad, Slaad Spawn and the Storm Titan followed by the Frost Titan, Chillfire Destroyer and Rimefire Griffon.

There's even something for novel readers. This month's Spotlight Interview is centered on the novel department of Wizards which discusses about the process of creating storylines for D&D worlds such as Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Dark Sun and how game products and novels can influence each other. There also some hints on what is coming up in future novels like The Ghost King, the final book in Drizzt's Transistion trilogy and what will be in the newest Dragonlance novel, Dragons of the Hourglass Mage.

Speaking of novels, if you've read The Stowaway, written by Geno and R.A. Salvatore, you might be interested in finding out the 4E D&D stat blocks for the Stowaway's Stone and the half-demonic Asbeel.

One surprise that came out this week was the 4E conversion for the Exemplars of Evil which may be understandable since it was one of the products that was released during the limbo period when 4E was first announced. Hopefully there will be more conversion articles in the future.

But the biggest surprise (which I've saved for the last) is the screenshots of the Monster Builder. This feature that will be available for D&D Insiders will contain more than 2,000 monsters and 10,000 powers from all published materials by Wizards. It will also allow you to edit them such as adding levels to certain monsters and it will help you recalculate the attack bonus etc.

Find out all these and more from the rundown below for this week.

Monday (13/7/09)
GenCon 2009 Schedule
Divine Power Art Gallery
The Stowaway: Demon & The Stone
D&D Monster Builder

Tuesday (14/7/09)
Legendary Evils Preview 2
Khyber's Harvest

Wednesday (15/7/09)
4th Edition Conversion: Exemplars of Evil
Vicious Venues: The Sunfields
Seekers of the Ashen Crown Excerpts

Thursday (16/7/09)
Legendary Evils Preview 3

Friday (17/7/09)
Spotlight Interview: Novels

Next week will be the release for the Eberron Campaign Guide, Divine Power, Seekers of the Ashen Crown and the PHB Heroes 2 miniature set. Other than that we'll be starting to see the excerpts from Adventurer's Vault 2 and possibly another miniature tips and tactics for a monster from Legendary Evils.

This is the first week since I'm using this new format so if you have any thoughts on this week's rundown or the new format, feel free to drop a comment.

{Quest Log} Let's Get This Party Started 3 & 4

First of all, sorry for not updating last week. I'm still trying to balance my life between play time and work time and working at a game store doesn't help very much because priorities can get a little mixed. It has not only affected my biological clock but also my blogging routine which some of you may know has been greatly reduced.

So, to make up for last week I will be making this entry doubly long for your reading (or despairing) pleasure.

Final Prep
After two weeks of bad planning and schedule clashes on my part, we confirmed 4 players and set a date for character generation using the free character builder and discuss on when and where should we be playing. The party consist of:

• Zed, Human Rogue
• Chant, Tiefling Bard
• Kurndash, Dragonborn Fighter
• Narakh Nukem, Dragonborn (infernal) Warlock

After char gen, we agreed on a date and location for the game to be held. Seeing that neither of the players' houses would be convenient to have us in, we agreed to play in a boardgame cafe called Carcaseon.

Normally, the cafe is meant for people who wants to play any of the boardgames they offer but after speaking with the owner, he was alright with us bringing in our own grinds, miniatures, dices and the whole lot as long as we paid for drinks.

For the adventure, in between procrastination and working hours, I planned out 5 encounters with a goblinoid theme. As I said in my previous post, goblins are a very versatile monster race. With the right mix of minions, lurkers, soldiers, controllers and leaders, you could easily make encounters ranging from EL 1 to 4.

I was having the most trouble designing a skill challenge. My initial approach was trying to scientifically build a skill challenge that would present a challenge at the same time allowing the PCs to shine. Although it would be rewarding for the characters, it actually places a limit on your imagination when you are thinking of matching both criteria. In the end, I went with designing a skill challenge that matches with the narrative of the adventure than matching it with the characters.

With the framework of encounters and skill challenge laid out, all that was left is to create a narrative to tied them up together. I was actually stumped for ideas that wasn't cliche at first until the very last hours before the game was about to start. After writing some general notes and sketching out the battle grinds for each encounter, I was prepared enough for the game.

Character Builder FAIL!
What I am about to say about the Character Builder may seem like I'm blaming it but I believe it's more of a matter that the character builder just doesn't sync with our group style. It might actually be because we are just not used to it or expect too much from it.

Nevertheless after this one-shot, we pretty much agreed that we won't be using the Character Builder again until something convinces us otherwise. In terms of usability and convenience, it actually created more hassle for us than solve them.

One issue that I have about the builder is during the equipment stage. When Chant's player double clicked on the equipment that he wanted, the builder added it into his character list at no cost. Without realizing at first that he was 'buying' equipment for free and when we later found out that he was not being charged for it, we sold the items which caused a great imbalance in the amount of cash he was having.

Although it didn't affect the one-shot game since they didn't had to spend anything for the adventure, it was still weird that double-clicking an item in the equipment stage, adds rather than buys the item.

Another minor complaint that I have for the builder is that while giving us the character sheets filled in is very nice, it isn't transferable if the other computer doesn't have the builder. This made printing out the sheets a problem for us since the group didn't have a printer connected to a PC that has the builder in it. In the end, we had to borrow the cafe's printer and plug it into my laptop.

It would have been better if there was a way to turn the completed character sheets into a pdf file or something that doesn't require the builder.

After the character generation, I asked one of the more experienced players if they prefer using the builder or doing things with good old pencil and paper and his answer reflected my sentiments exactly about the builder. While the builder is really fast, our style of character generation is more to planning the progression of the character than to simply put them together.

On the other hand, the inclusion of the power cards in the character sheet was very handy to the extent that it feels like a must-have for the 4E table. However, a couple of the players who were completely new to the system found it a little confusing to understand the numbers.

One of them in particular didn't understand how the builder could calculate out a certain number for his powers and it was hard to deduce the modifiers since it doesn't state out the exact calculation. The other player who was playing the rogue, thought that the formatting of the numbers made it harder to understand how much damage he dealt including his sneak attack and didn't realize that he had made a mistake until after the session.

That basically sums up our experience with the builder and we probably won't be using it again to generate characters except for filling in the numbers and printing out the sheets after we have made our choices on paper.

The One-Shot Session
The gist of the adventure is that the PCs have to track a warband of goblins that raided a heavily armed caravan, looting everything particularly magical items which belonged to the town wizard who hired them. After following them to the nearby marsh, they find the goblin encampment beside a half-sunken eladrin keep and enter it to find the stolen goods.

Combat was generally fun with some good laughs at the 4E mechanics like the warlock giving the enemies the finger as his way of cursing them. I didn't feel the grind that some complained about combat. In fact, I, as the DM, was having more fun during combat than I was in 3.x because the battle changes almost on every turn when monsters and PCs throw powers at each other.

I managed to see forced movement in play with the bard using Shout of Triumph and my goblins using Goblin Tactics which really adds a tactical dimension to battles. I noticed that there's quite a large disparity between the damage being dealt by PCs and monsters with the latter doing much less when they are fighting toe-to-toe against the PCs.

When the PCs reached the skill challenge which was to find a way into the half-sunken keep whether by swimming or climbing to the top of the battlement, I used the DC in the rules update and it was easily overcome when the PCs simply decided to just take 10 on them. It wasn't a real challenge at all and the PCs didn't even notice that they had just went through one.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe the DC was just too low or I shouldn't have allowed them to take 10 for skill checks in a skill challenge.

I didn't even bother counting successes and I'm not sure if there's a point of doing that. I just let them through as long as they came up with a solution that sounds reasonable enough to overcome the skill challenge.

Anyone has some suggestions or something to point out about running skill challenges?

Wrapping Up and Post-Session
We didn't manage to finish the one-shot after 5 hours but we ended with a good cliffhanger at the entrance of the last encounter. Everyone had a great time despite moments in between encounters where I slipped due to lack of detailed preparation.

We are currently planning for the next session which should be a short one just to go through the final encounter. I'm thinking whether I should add in another encounter to extend the gaming hours. What do you think about putting two EL4 encounters back-to-back with a short rest in between? Do you think the PCs (they are level 1 by the way) would be able to hold it up?

Overall, 4E seems to stick well with me and the new players despite the technical stumbles we had before the game. It would be interesting to see whether this game would be our system of choice for a long term campaign which we might do after we finish with this delve.

Questing's Readings - Psion Edition

Wizards have released the complete version of the Psion class from Player's Handbook 3 for DDI subscribers which introduces a different type of power mechanics that has no encounter powers but giving them power points to augment their at-wills.

Psion and psionics in general has always been one of those hotly debated topics in D&D because some either loved it or hated it. One thing's for sure, Psions and psionics has always been an exception rather than the rule in D&D and even though I was certain that 4E has streamlined it when they announced a psionic power source. It seems that the designers has managed to carry on that tradition.

So in this special edition of Questing's Readings, these are the posts that bloggers from the RPG Bloggers Network had to say about the new Psion class and what are their thoughts about psionics in general, now that its arrival into the game is inevitable.

It also has some good spoilers (or teasers) for those who don't have a subscription for DDI to read the full psion class.

A Hero Twice A Month
A new class and new mechanics

At-Will
Beneath the Surface" Has anyone played the Psion yet?

Critical Hits
4E: Psion - by the Numbers

Dungeon's Master
Psionics Suck!

GarGamer
Psion Review/General Stuff

Geek Ken
Preview: the Psion Class

Ideamancer
Psion: How to multiclass?

Points of Light
Debut: Meet the Psion
Angra, Tiefling Psion

WeeBeeGamers
New D&D Class: The Psion

Word of Wizards - 11/7/09

There's been so much update this week at Wizards that I haven't been able to catch up with them at all. So some of this week's links might be directed straight at Wizards' website rather than my own posts on them.

This week, the excerpts from Divine Power and Eberron Campaign Guide have concluded which will open way for the next batch of excerpts. This time sadly, it will only come from one book which is Adventurer's Vault 2. However, on the other end, the previews of the Legendary Evils monster miniature line has started.

The features of this week has been mainly centered on Divine Power which were covered by this month's Steal This Hook! and the D&D Podcast. In addition, Wizards have also introduced a new feature called Out-of-the-Box Encounter which teaches you how to effectively use your miniatures in-game.

There's also a video interview with R.A Salvatore who has just released the second book in the Transistion trilogy, The Pirate King.

So if you haven't really been able to catch up with these updates, like me, here's the rundown.

Monday (6/7/09)
Previews for July and Beyond
Divine Power Excerpts: Virtuous Paladin
Eberron Campaign Guide Excerpts: Drooam & Encounter

Wednesday (8/7/09)
July 2009 Character Builder & Compendium News
Success Along the Adventure Path 8
Steal This Hook! Threats of a Divine Nature
Out-of-the-Box Encounter: Aboleth Slime Mage
Book Nook: R.A. Salvatore

Thursday (9/7/09)
Legendary Evils Preview 1

Friday (10/7/09)
Eberron Campaign Guide Excerpts: Q'barra & Table of Contents
Divine Power Excerpts: Avatar of Death

Next week, there will only be one excerpt from the Eberron adventure module, Seekers of the Ashen Crown. Other than that, we can expect to see this month's Vicious Venues and Spotlight Interview. There's also a conversion article for Exemplars of Evil from 3.x which might be interesting

Subscribers will have a lot to look forward starting with a Class Acts article and Design and Development: Psionics on Monday followed by Familiars of Eberron on Friday.

Also, I have a little announcement to make. After considering the feedback that I asked in last week's Burning Question, I've decided to reduce the Word of Wizards feature down to a weekly one. Which means that I would no longer be posting single post on each and every update that appears on the Wizards website as soon as their up. Instead what I'll do is something much more like these weekly compilations on every Saturday with direct links to all the items that were added to the Wizards website during that week.

Although this changes are effective starting next week but I don't mind listening to any feedback that you might have on these changes (or if you missed the Burning Question from last week, be sure to drop some feedback). Of course, I will like to thank everyone who has supported me for doing this longest running feature of the blog.

Word of Wizards - Excerpts: Avatar of Death

Divine Power Excerpts: Avatar of Death

The Avatar of Death is death incarnate who has temporarily taken mortal form and have come to realize her true form when she reaches 21st level and has the Death Knell feat. With this knowledge, the avatar knows no fear for death and can only wait to rejoin with the eternal essence of the Raven Queen or some other deity of death.

Upon realizing her true destiny, the avatar gain Foresight of Morality (21st level destiny feature) which increases her intelligence and wisdom by 2. She makes certain that Death Comes to All (21st level destiny feature) which makes her powers ignore 20 necrotic resistance.

Woe to those who would attempt to bring death to avatar before her time. When an avatar dies, she returns with a Deadly Revival (24th destiny feature) if she dies for the first time on that day. She regains hitpoints equal to her bloodied value and all enemies within 10 square of her are vulnerable 15 against necrotic damage until the end of her next turn.

She is the Harbinger of Demise (30th level destiny feature) bringing certain fatality to those who are on the verge of death. When an enemy ends their turn adjacent to her with 25 hitpoints or less, they immediately die.

To those that would try to avoid death's embrace with spiritual and physical healing, she brings Inevitable Death (level 26; daily). Each enemy within close burst 5 gain 10 vulnerability against all damage and cannot regain hitpoints through regeneration or healing powers (save ends).

Any thoughts on the Avatar of Death?

Word of Wizards - Excerpts: Q'barra & Table of Contents

Eberron Campaign Guide Excerpts: Q'barra & Table of Contents

The final excerpt from Eberron Campaign Guide details on the monsters and the natural resources that can found in Q'barra revealed through Nature checks. From this excerpt, Q'barra might be the new de facto homeland of the dragonborn in Khorvaire.

Finally, there's the table of contents of the book which has altogether 7 section, not including the introduction and the appendix which contains the sample adventure. Here are the following sections to expect;

1. Introduction
2. Adventures
3. The City of Towers
4. The Five Nations
5. Greater Khorvaire
6. Beyond Khorvaire
7. Dragonmarks
8. Gods and Cosmology
9. Appendix: The Mark of Prophecy
10. Index
11. New Monsters

I'm pretty excited about the campaign guide because it has a whole section on the City of Towers. It might only be 8 pages which won't be enough to compress all the info from the Sharn: City of Towers supplement in 3.x but it's one of the hallmark location that I would start all my Eberron campaigns in.

Another section that makes me happy is that they have included the King's Citadel under Breland in the Five Nations section. The section on dragonmarks might be interesting since it dedicates about 2 pages to each of the dragonmarked houses.

Word of Wizards - Legendary Evils Preview 1

Legendary Evils Preview 1

The preview for the second set of monster miniatures, Legendary Evils has started and it will be the first set featuring huge-sized miniatures since they changed the format of distribution for D&D Miniatures. Each booster will come with 1 visible huge miniature, 1 large rare, 1 medium or small-sized rare and 2 commons.

This set will have 8 huges, 12 large rares, 12 medium/small rares and 8 commons.

Now onto the miniatures in this preview.

Elder Green Dragon

It might not look much but I'm assuming that it'll look awesome since it's has to be a huge miniature. It's good that they have updated the new 4E look for the green dragon but to me it doesn't matter as long as its green.

Githzerai Mindmage

Githzerai Cenobite

This set second set finishes up on the githzerai appearing in Monster Manual. One major spoiler revealed in this preview is that the githzerai will be appearing as a playable race in Player's Handbook 3 so these guys can definitely be used to represent your characters as well.

Hoard Scarab Larva Swarm

Useful as a three dimensional representation of a pile of gold for the unsuspecting player.

Psychic Sentinel

Based on the Psion-killer monster from the 3.x Psionic Handbook, it is now a servitor for the githzerai and is a Level 12 Elite Soldier. This could also be used to represent a large fire elemental monster.

Any thoughts on these minis?

Word of Wizards - Out-of-the-Box Encounter: Aboleth Slime Mage

Out-of-the-Box Encounter: Aboleth Slime Mage

Wizards is introducing a new feature that will look into the story elements of each miniature and making the best use of it with effective tactics and terrain recommendations. To start it off, they decided to show how you create an encounter with the Aboleth Slime Mage.

It has some really good advice and nice suggestions which makes this a very useful feature. This is especially good for DMs who are using these monsters/miniatures for the first time on their PCs. I will be looking forward to more of these article in the future.

Word of Wizards - Steal This Hook! Threats of a Divine Nature

Steal This Hook! Threats of a Divine Nature

Wizards have come up with 3 divine-themed plot hooks with sidebars to give you some ideas on how to tie them in with the new mechanics of Divine Power and Eberron Campaign Guide, both that will be released this month.

Sudden Retirement
Rumors that the dwarf priest of Moradin is retiring with no successor apparent or named is raising concerns in a town.

This plot hook can be expanded in two ways. First, the PCs could be hired to investigate the underlying reason for this sudden announcement. Could the priest be running from a past or is a doppleganger involved? The second way is deal the aftermath of this announcement. With no heir apparent named, potential successors are scheming to gain power. This could result in mysterious disappearances of candidates, candidates trying to prove their worth or maybe one of the PCs is nominated?

This plot hook doesn't necessarily have to be happening to the church of Moradin as long as its any other church that could be badly affected by the sudden retirement of their high priest.

The Dread God
The PCs have an appointment with someone who they are close to and somehow she never turned up for the meeting which is unusual. Later they find out that the body of their friend has been found....drained of blood.

A cult is possibly involved that could be led by a vampire or a monstrous demon that requires blood sacrifice. Finding out the identity of its members and the location of their gathering spot will be the main challenge.

But why is their friend victimized? Was she simply a coincidental victim or maybe she was a member of the cult?

Hidden Blessing
The PCs hear about the tale of Praxus, a noble paladin who went to war and never returned. There is a statue of him in the town center and a farmer insists that she saw the statue moved.

Could the statue really be Praxus petrified by a medusa? An animated statue placed by some mysterious sculptor? Or Praxus trapped in the stone form by other powerful beings?

What will happened if Praxus is released from the stone form? Will he want vengeance or bring destruction to the town where he is revered as a saint?

Word of Wizards - Success Along the Adventure Path 8

Success Along the Adventure Path 8: Beyond the Mottled Tower

In the encounter with a pair of green dragons (Anthrosk and Calauxin) there are 2 recommended miniatures to represent Calauxin. So I've marked them with an asterisk to indicate that they are interchangeable.

Dungeon Tiles

• Against the Giants
• Arcane Corridors
• Dungeon Tiles
• Hidden Crypts
• Ruins of the Wild
• Streets of Shadows

Miniatures
Against the Giants

• 1 Thunderblast Cyclone (#9)
• 1 Young Adamantine Dragon (#52)*

Blood War

• 1 Centaur War Hulk (#15)
• 1 Bluespawn Stormlizard (#30)

Dangerous Delves

• 4 Cyclops Crusher
• 3 Githyanki Warrior
• 1 Githzerai Zerth

Deathknell

• 1 Spectre (#42)

Demonweb

• 2 Mezzodemon (#4)
• 1 Skull Lord (#27)
• 8 Troglodyte Brute (#51)
• 1 Troglodyte Curse Chanter (#52)

Desert of Desolation

• 2 Shadar-kai Assassin (#35)
• 2 Fire Archon (#50)

Dungeons of Dread

• 1 Immolith (#15)
• 2 Warrior Wight (#17)
• 8 Magma Brute (#19)
• 2 Ascendant Hellsword (#21)
• 1 Wyvern (#42)*
• 1 Emerald Orb Wizard (#44)
• 1 Spectral Magelord (#46)

Giants of Legend

• 4 Githyanki Renegade (#16)

Night Below

• 1 Berserk Flesh Golem (#46)

Underdark

• 1 Duergar Champion (#35)

War of the Dragon Queen

• 1 Large Green Dragon (#38)
• 1 Redspawn Fireblecher (#52)

Word of Wizards - July 2009 Character Builder and Compendium News

July 2009 Character Builder and Compendium News

The new batch of updates for the Character Builder and Compendium is up and it has the content of all the books and magazines released up to the month of June including the Eberron Player's Guide and Dragon 375 which has the Wilden and the updated hybrid rules. The Insider version of the updated character builder will also include the Psion class from Player's Handbook 3.

Other fixes, adjustments and enhancements have also been added to the compendium such as including traps and hazards into the database.

Word of Wizards - Previews for July and Beyond

Previews for July and Beyond

This month's preview is quite a short one and it only previews the releases up to August.

July
Martial Heroes 3 which was not previewed is shown here.


It's nice to see a good dragonborn miniature for clerics, paladins, fighters and warlords and the paintjob looks excellent.


An alright looking eladrin ranger despite the plain looking pose.


A gnome rogue-like miniature which should be useful.

An extra excerpt from Divine Power features the Avatar of Freedom which is a mortal incarnation of Avandra or Melora or any other deity of freedom and liberation. When becoming an Avatar of Freedom, they have Freedom of Mind and Body (21st level destiny feature), they get +2 to Dex and Wis. They can also Liberate the Mind (21st level destiny feature) which gives an ally a +2 bonus to saving throws dominated, immobilized, restrained and slowed.

When an Avatar dies or is dying, they return with a Liberating Revival (24th level destiny feature) which lets him regain hitpoints equal to his bloodied value and allies within 10 squares are freed from slowing, restraining and immobilizing effects. At level 30, the avatar becomes an Agent of Freedom (30th level destiny feature) which makes him immune to domination, immobilization, restrain and petrification. They also ignore difficult terrain and can shift their speed as a move action.

Broken Chain (level 26; daily) is a stance that allows all allies that starts their turn within 5 squares of the avatar to make a saving throw against each effect that can be ended by a save.

August
A couple of magical items from Adventurer's Vault 2 is shown.

The Rat King's Cloak is a magical armor that grants resistance against swarm attacks and they can move through a swarm without provoking opportunity attacks. Space-Bending Weapon allows you to hit an enemy 5 squares away as though they are adjacent to you.

Finally to kickstart the preview for the Legendary Evils monster set, they have given some mouth watering pictures along with their stat cards.


Balor (back, front)


War Troll (back, front)


Salamander Firetail (back, front)


Yochlol Tempter (back, front)


Human Rabble (back, front)