Roll Initiative...

This is one of the latest D&D sourcebooks to be released by Wizards of the Coast. It's not the usual fare, in that it's not a *true* sourcebook of supplimentary rules... rather it's sort of a fictional reference book for Aber-Toril.

It's a lore book: Containing a vast, and detailed timeline of the Forgotten Realms from -35000 DR up to the present campaign year (1375 DR) and on ten years into the 'future' to the point where 4th edition will begin.

Ah yes... 4th edition. This would be the reason why this has absolutely no 3.5ed content... However, that's not entirely a bad thing, and I have to say that the presentation of the Realm's version of why the rules on magic and such change so drastically is fairly interesting. I won't say much about it, but it essentially 'reboots' the entire world, shifting around the gods, the big name NPCs (who have been dropping like flies in recent novels), and the continent itself.

Okay, so the positive points:

- The first thing you're going to see is the gorgeous cover, and believe me: compared to recent WotC books, this is nothing short of fantastic.
A giant mountainscape featuring Drizzt Do'Urden on the front, and Elminster the Sage on the back.

-The book is pure, uninterrupted lore and history. No padding with prestige classes, feats or spell.. just the rich fantasy history of the most popular D&D setting. The timeline is detailed and gives references to other entries to aid following the fate of long-lived events.
Strengthening and complimenting this, are dozens of sidebar essays, notes and personal viewpoints as written by the characters that lived at the times in question (complete with different handwriting fonts).
These sidebars really flesh out some of the key points, making it far more interesting.
There are also a few pages of monarchy lineage from some of the main kingdoms... not as interesting, but a handy addition.

Now personally, this is the sort of thing I just drink up. It's why I play in the Forgotten Realms at all, and certainly why I own dozens of novels. It's just fascinating, and I could spend hours reading through the past of the world.
Now, the foreword mentions that the book isn't particularly useful for DMs, but I beg to differ because it enables a DM to flesh out their storylines with both the past of the land, and also with what's going on at the same time.

-It's not all about money. For once it seems like they've just released a high-quality source book without squeezing money out with the previously mentioned useless padding.

The downsides:

-The art. Unfortunately, with the exception of the front cover, and most of the maps, almost all of the pictures found in the book are simply recycled from prior D&D books with new captions. Lazy.
Not to say the pictures are bad... far from it.. it's just a bit cheap to not have new illustrations. I'm always going to link the pictures with what they *should* be.

-It's unnecessary. The content (save the future lore, and mini-essays) is all recycled from previous books, just compiled into one long timeline, so you can get almost all of the content elsewhere.
The saving grace here is that there *are* some new entries to the timeline, and many of are fleshed out to a paragraph from maybe a single line.

-It's a spoiler. I personally ruined two novels I'm currently reading in the present/future entries. Now, I did know this would happen, and I looked nevertheless because I needed to know some of the outcomes for the campaign I'm writing.. but all the same be warned.

-It's money grabbing.
See the thing further up saying it's not? Well... in truth it is and isn't.
Why? Well, despite none of the content being heavily watered down it *should* have been free.

Actually, it was. Most of all of it was put together on the Wizard's website by user of the game. Available to download for free.
Fair enough, they've updated it, added polish and added content.... but still, it should have been free. The foreword mentions that when the user's uploaded Grad History of the Realms was noticed by one WotC writer, he contacted the big bosses suggesting that they make it official and add some extra stuff and then release it as a free web-enhancement.
But then, the execs saw dollar signs, and here we are...

So, all in all, I think this is a fine addition to any Realms fan's collection. It's a wondeful book all in all, despite it's few transgressions. Bear in mind the original user-made version can still be found online though...

Final note. I was pleased to see the plot of Neverwinter Nights being cannonised finally, though the expansions were conspicuously absent.

Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast unveiled Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition at Gen-Con.
I for one am not happy (and I certainly know I'm not alone).

For one, this means my hundreds of pounds worth of books will be redundant, and I will be expected to shell out again, for something seeming very similar to the current rules.
On top of this, the new edition will require a number of things to get the most out of it: First, a laptop or PC at every gaming session (not a viable option in a lot of cases), and more annoyingly, an online feature which requires a paid subscription.

The subscription service supposedly "unlocks extra features" that aren't in the books by inputting a code from your physical book. In other words, if you don't pay this, you won't get all of the information from the book you already own.

Here's some of the things being promised:

-Higher level cap (30 instead of 20).
Big deal... the epic level handbook goes up to level 40.

-Easier to DM [provided you pay the subscription for the extra DM tools]
They claim to have made the layout so that you don't have to stop and flip through the books to find the appropriate rule. Bullcrap. There is no way they can promise that.

-Defined roles.
Basically, each member of the party has a more specialised role. Less flexibility, methinks?

-New power sources.
"So that everyone has something fun to do all the time, not just the wizards and the clerics"
Or, in other words, making the spellcasting classes far less unique and interesting to play, because everyone will be able to have various forms of magic.

-Resource management.
What the hell? They claim it means that spellcasters out of magic can still do important things... but doesn't that defeat the point of having a limit to spells per day?

-New Encounter Design
"In first edition you'd fight one troll, in 2nd edition you'd fight, maybe one and a half trolls... now you could be fighting a whole lot of trolls"
Wow... adding more monsters in... that's entirely not possible at all in 3.5 ed!
Oh wait.... yeah it is.

Basically, this is just one big money-grabbing scheme.
D&D is about the only real hobby I have, and making it so that I can't buy any new books without having to upgrade entirely, paying huge amounts for stuff I largely have anyway is greedy, to say the least.

I *might* buy the new PHB when it comes out next year, but only so I can see through all the jargon, and see what these new rules are actually about.

Source:

Having read a printed D&D adventure in one of my newer sourcebooks, I found within a small riddle encounter area. Riddles and puzzles haven't been used enough, but since I'm not good at guaging how difficult said riddle is, I thought I might present it to the blogosphere before deciding whether I should use it or not...

So here goes... see if you can work out the solution.

You have been led to an ancient crypt due to a strange artifact that you recovered: A jade obelisk the size of a dagger.
You stand in a 45 x 20 foot rectangular chamber, having entered from a door to the south. Along the north wall are two exits; one towards the west end of the wall, and one towards the east. Both of these archways are barred by a powerful forcefield.
The stretch of wall between the two archways is covered with a grand mosaic depicting a mountainside with two cave entrances, there is also a message written in the tiles (more on that in a second).

In the centre of the chamber, an ornate three-layered fountain bubbles noisily as water cascades down it. Around the bottom layer of the fountain are carvings of orcs. Around the middle layer are carvings of ogres in battle. At the top layer, four gargoyle heads (coloured red, white, green and blue) are carved into the stone, each with opened mouths into which something can be placed. Topping the fountain is a large upright hammer made of gold.

So now to the message in the mosaic:

Look here to find the middle,
Look here to answer the riddle.
Green stone in a gargoyle's mouth,
The safest route is to the south.
But should you wish to travel on,
Place the key in monster's yawn.
One path is safe, three mouths lie,
Every one will help you die.
Which colour do I like the best?
That's the answer to this test.

And below, the riddle:

I love high, but hate heights,
Best is better than good.
The colour that I like
Is neither tree nor fire, nor grave.
It more resembles a map or chart,
But never a globe.

What are you going to do?

This seems an appropriate addition to my AC discussion above.

I recently bought Unearthed Arcana, and amongst the variant rules within I found one relating AC and damage resistance.
In similar (but fewer) words than myself they pointed out that there is a common mistake whereby people forget that beating AC means bypassing the armour to do damage, not just to hit the opponent.

However they go on to suggest a horrible bastardised version of the DR and AC rules. They do this for balance reasons, so the game mechanics remain functional, but in real-world terms it makes even less sense.

Basically the suggested system is this:
AC for different types of armour is significantly reduced, and then a damage reduction is applied on top.

So, in other words, you bypass the armour with your attack (by beating the AC) you then have the amount of damage you do reduced by the armour.
It seems to contradict itself, doesn't it? You're both bypassing the armour, and having it obstruct your blow. Hm...
This makes even *less* sense when you consider the different types of armour.

So say you stand with your rapier facing an adversary in full plate armour, and you skillfully score a wound by slipping the blade between the plates of steel (as rapiers were initially designed to do).
Now consider your tactics against someone in chainmail... you would as before try to score a hit in the regions where the armour doesn't cover.

So then, why would such a wound on the plate mail opponent be less damaging than the wound on the chainmail-wearer?

It really does take a good system and twist it into an absract and counter-intuitive concept for the sake of balance...

So I went to my local rpg shop (ironic, since it is *anything* but local... a more accurate title would be my 'regular', I suppose) and picked up a new source book and bunch of figures.

And 'lo and behold:

I find the aspect of Tiamat model within... now that's a pretty awesome model, wouldn't you agree? (It actually looks slightly better than in the picture there).

Now, here we come to a conundrum... see, I also got a Yuan-Ti Halfblood sorceror:

Puny, right?

I happened to glance at the bundled stat cards for the two critters (I never use them, but I sometimes look them over), and I compared their challenge ratings.

Aspect of Tiamat: CR 13
Yuan-Ti Halfblood Sorceror: CR 13

...Wait, what?

The little snake lady somehow is as tough as an aspect of the god of all evil dragons? I'm not seeing it, to be honest...

Methinks someone in the Wizards miniature department forget to add 10 somewhere there.

Ah well, as I said, I don't use the stat cards.. it just struck me as bizarre.

In my (admittedly not huge) DM experience, I've seen a number of rules that are either contested, or not fully understanded by other players.

Here I'm going to talk about probably the most common gripe I've heard... and that's AC (or armor class).

AC is basically a measure of how hard you are to hit when someone attacks you.
Basically - for anyone not in the know - since 3rd edition, AC is a number which an attacker has to match or exceed with an attack roll in order to score a hit; the larger the number, the harder it is to do this.

AC is made up of several factors; a standard 10 base number, size modifier (the bigger they are, the harder they are to hit), natural AC (due to thick scales, hide etc), Dex AC (how well you can duck and weave out of harm's way), Armor AC (due to the specific armour you're wearing, Shield AC (due to any shield you're carrying), and various AC bonuses from magical sources (Deflection, Divine etc).
Sum this all up, and you get your overall AC.

Now here's the controversy:
Some people claim that wearing amour shouldn't give you a boost to your AC, but rather should grant the wearer damage resistance (reducing the amount of damage you take from a sucessful hit).

Now, other than being difficult to implement due to balancing issues (as I've heard from game designers), this is a completely unecessary idea based on incomplete understanding of the mechanics of the game.
The normal AC system is also -in my opinion- far more realistic than the alternative.

This is the misunderstanding as I see it:
When someone fails to make an AC with their attack roll, most people see this as a 'miss':
You've swung your sword and the monster ducked completely under it.

Now, in some cases this is correct... if you roll terribly for attack, you can miss outright, and if your opponent has high Dex but light armour this is also likely to be the case.

At this point, a DR-pusher might say:
"But armour should cause the wearer difficulty in moving, rather than making them harder to miss... by removing the AC bonus, and replacing it with damage resistance"

Again, this is wrong. There is already a system to slow armour wearers down significantly... the Max Dex limit for the armour. Basically, if you're wearing full platemail, the most your Dexerity (and thus your Dex AC) can be is +1. For Leather armour, this is a much more reasonable maximum of +6, meaning that you can duck and weave quite effectively, but unfortunately, you have much worse protection.

So lets look at what AC really means:
AC is a measure of how hard you are to hit, as I already said. The key point to take in though, is not that not making the AC with an attack means you fail to hit your opponent; it means you fail to score a hit that damages your opponent.

Let's look again at the case of full plate armour. Say you made an attack on the warrior in his full plate, and you manage to beat his AC.
You swing your sword valiantly and- ...then what? Do you smack his breastplate with your blade and watch as somehow the slash cuts him inside his armor? Does your blade cut through the steel altogether?

Of course not... that would be silly. What happens is you strike a vulnerable area with your sword... the joints in the steel, or the places where there is less protection.

Let's do a recap. This was in one of the core rulebooks (I forget which one), in an often forgotten section.
What does your attack roll mean?

If your attack roll is less than 10 + your opponent's size modifier, then you missed him completely. He didn't even have to dodge, you were miles out.
If you roll slightly higher than before, but still less than 10 + size + Dex AC, then your foe has nicely dodged your attack.
If your roll exceeds this, but not by enough to overcome the shield bonus as well, then your weapon was deflected away my your foe's shield.
More than the above, but less than his magical AC bonus(es), then your blow was deflected away by an invisible, magical layer of force.
Higher still, but not above your enemy's armor bonus, then CLANG you just smacked his armor, but didn't score a hit.

If after all that, you beat his overall AC altogether you have made an attack that scores a hit in the gaps of his armour, and have wounded him.

All in all, that's a fairly comprehensive system that fully captures actual battle, wouldn't you think (excluding the magic, obviously)?
In the midst of a gaming session, it would really take to long to work out exactly what kind of miss an attack was, so it tends to default to "you missed", thus it's understandable why some people have gotten it into their heads that you miss altogether.

Ok, so now that I've defended the existing system for being completly valid and effective... let's see the alternative.

Damage resistance pops up in various different monsters. It's basically a way of saying that, a creature can take a hit, and not worry about damage from it.
Usually, damage resistance reduces any damage recieved by 5 or 10 points (though cases of greater damage resistance exists). Also, most damage resistance has a certain way of overcoming it.
Magic overcomes *all* damage resistance, but beyond that there are types that are overcome by magical weapons of certain strengths, some which are overcome by certain types of damage (zombies, for instance take normal damage from bludgeoning weapons, but not from slashing or piercing weapons since zombies aren't really using their organs anyway... who cares if you poke a few holes in them?) and some which require a specific material that a weapon needs to be made from in order to overcome it (lycanthropes are a big example here... everyone knows you need sliver weapons to harm a werewolf).
But regardless of the strength or what overcomes it; all damage resistance can be overcome if you do enough damage.

Let's think back to our poor friend trying to cut through his opponent's plate armour.... better yet, let's give him a dagger instead.
If the armour had damage resistance, rather than an AC bonus then if our friend was strong enough, he would be able to stab you quite easily through your steel armour.
That doesn't sound quite right, does it?

There are already rules in place that allow you to try and break your opponent's equipment, armour included... so let's not mess with the rules and make everything unbalanced and silly because of a misunderstanding, eh?

Note: I want to point out that I'm aware I alternated between 'armor' and 'armour' several times there.
This is because terms like 'armor bonus' are written that way, and I don't like messing with technical terms in case it causes confusion. Writing armour, as in the noun 'armour' however I am more than willing to do.

The greatest enemy of the Fair Folk is the drow, the debased followers of the Spider Queen who long ago were enmeshed in her dark web. Redemption and revenge may be achieved through the utter destruction of the drow and the dark deities they serve. Only then may the joy of life begin anew. Hunt fearlessly! - Dogma of the Church of Shevarash.

A night hunter is the embodiment of the ideals of The Black Archer, and the highest among his faithful. Much more than a priest, far beyond a simple hunter, she is a weapon, given wholly to Shevarash to wield, and rewarded with divine power.
While a ranger might train to improve his fighting technique against a few favoured opponents, a night hunter's whole existance revolves around becoming more deadly to drow.

Becoming a Night Hunter of Shevarash
Both the cleric and ranger class are ideal paths to becoming a night hunter of Sheverash, each benefiting from the class in different ways; a ranger gains vast improvements to her Favoured Enemy ability, while a cleric gains more potency in battle without sacrificing her spellcasting.
A multiclass cleric/ranger would gain both advantages, but runs the risk of becoming a jack of all trades, and master of none.
Ocassionally, a fallen paladin with a grudge against drow will embrace this class to partially regain their lost powers and learn how to better kill the dark elves that so wronged him.
Druids also occasionally take a few levels in this class to improve their martial skills, but are rare at best.

Entry Requirements:
Base Attack Bonus: +5
Type: Cannot be drow
Alignment: Any chaotic
Skills: Knowledge (dungeoneering): 3 ranks, Knowledge (religion): 4 ranks
Feats: Weapon Focus (longbow), Track
Patron: Shevarash

Class skills: Concentration, Gather Information, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (dungeoneering), Knowledge (religion), Listen, Move Silently, Sense Motive, Spot, Survival

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the night hunter of shevarash prestige class.
Spellcasting: At each level, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in a divine spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one divine spellcasting class before becoming a night hunter of Shevarash, you must decide which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, and spells known.
Darkvision (Ex): At 7th level you gain darkvision out to 30ft. If you already had darkvision, this extends the range by 30ft. This ability lets a dark hunter see in the drow's dark domains.
Drow Poison Immunity (Ex): At 5th level, you gain a natural immunity to the knockout poison favoured by drow. This ability is in effect even if a non-drow attacks you with a weapon coated in drow poison, but does not ward against any other form of poison, even if used by a drow.
Favoured Enemy (Ex): At first level, your hatred for drow grants you a +2 bonus on Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot and Survival checks when using these skills against drow.
Likewise, you gain a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls against drow.
At 4th level, this bonus increases to +4, and at 8th level it becomes +6. This ability stacks with any other favoured enemy (drow) feature that you gained from another source.
Lay on Hands (Sp): As a champion of the faith, a night hunter may lay on hands to heal herself or another creature involved in the hunt. From 2nd level onwards, the ability works like a paladin's ability to lay on hands, except the divine champion may heal 1 point of damage per dark hunter level times her charisma bonus.
This ability stacks with any other lay on hands ability you may have from another source.
Pierce Drow Defence (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, you gain a +1 bonus to caster level checks made to overcome the spell resistance common to all drow. At 6th level this bonus improves to +2, and at 9th level it improves one last time to +3.
This bonus stacks with the caster level bonus granted by the spell penetration, and greater spell penetration feats.
Smite Drow (Su): Once per day, a night hunter may attempt to smite a drow with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per night hunter level.
At 4th level, she may use this ability a second time per day, and at 8th level this extends further to a third use per day.
Sunbeam (Sp): At tenth level, a night hunter gains access to the greatest weapon in the fight against drow; once per day she may cast Sunbeam, as the spell.

Fallen Paladins
A fallen paladin that takes levels in dark hunter of Shevarash may reclaim some of his lost abilities, granted by Shevarash.

If the character had 2 or fewer paladin levels, he gains an additional smite drow attack per day on top of the number granted by the prestige class.
If the character had 3 or more paladin levels then he also regains his lay on hands ability that he had as a paladin. This ability stacks with the lay on hands ability of this prestige class (if any), but only functions on the faithful of Shevarash or those aiding in the hunt against the drow.

Ok, so let me explain the existence of this blog.

I play pen and paper role playing games; Dungeons & Dragons specifically. I'm a DM, and when I have time I will write adventures, rules and additional features for the two games I run weekly at my university.

This blog will be my record of DMly goings on, and a small archive of anything I create for the game.

I know that it's unlikely that any D&D players (or even fellow DMs) will blunder across this blog, but at least I'm making an effort.
And, hey... it's something to do and somewhere to keep all the crap I keep writing