Golems don't pair up terribly well with each other because their abilities mirror each other so closely. Still, it's a mighty PC who can weather one set of crushing construct fists, much less two (or more). When multiple golems strike, crowd control will make you a hero.
Unfortunately, it's really difficult to immobilize or seperate a golem from his unliving peers. Walls of plants, stone, ice, or metal will be ignored or crashed through very quickly. It's unlikely that a golem could be grappled with successfully, and, being mindless, they can't be fooled or misdirected.
At low levels you may be able to fake crowd control with area of effect spells like grease (golems generally have poor reflex saves, and even poorer balance checks) or even mirror image to fill a hallway with duplicates. At mid and higher levels a summoned monster could keep a golem from getting to you and your allies, at least temporarily, and a wall of force will keep the average golem out of the fight for the life of the spell (9 rounds at least). If you're unable to figure out a golem's weakness, scan your spell list for area of effect spells and anything else that doesn't allow spell resistance to keep your usefulness high for the whole encounter--even slowing a golem down can make a real difference.
Additionally, the second Fighting and Running article will be all about Swarms. Look for it in a week or two, and watch for five unique 4E moths spanning levels 1 to 26 to be released this week in the Critter Crate.
]]>Well, that can't be right.
"You need balance so that it's fun for everyone at the table," I retorted. Then I think he said something about my mother, and we kept playing. The idea that a game could be fun while lacking a militant eye for consistency and power levels on both sides of the screen perplexes me, though. Hopefully you can help me understand.
Game balance is a broad term, and for the purpose of this discussion I'd like it to encompass every factor of the game: exploration versus puzzles versus combat versus roleplaying; character power among each other; character power among the enemy; DM rulings in unusual situations; and the common lethality around your game world.
I think we can all agree that, like a movie, expectations and individual taste play a huge role in determining our enjoyment. I prefer deep storylines, dynamic characters, a little emotional growth, and grit, so I think that a well-balanced game offers me the most direct, longest-lived, and enjoyable path through those fine forests. It isn't hard to imagine someone who prefers disposable characters and kicking ass without even bothering to take names, and it seems that a less-balanced style of game would cater to that audience. Getting drowned without recourse is moot if you aren't invested in that character.
To me, this line of thinking becomes inconsistent if you think of the older editions where the goal was to "imagine the hell out of it." (Did I get that right?) Imagining things is fun, but hard work. It takes effort for the DM to think up a story that the characters will bite on. It takes effort for the characters to think up backstories and to act in character. And if your game has no balance you could suddenly find all that effort wasted when the PCs grow bored of rolling over your monsters, or when you grow bored of TPKs (to say nothing of the losers in these situations). Worse yet, maybe your off-the-cuff imaginings result in a great success for a PC one week, and then a dead PC the next. That would be nothing but frustrating, and would probably cause arguments, the anti-fun.
I'm missing something here. I can't embrace the idea that the 1st generation of tabletop gamers did nothing but reroll one-dimensional characters all the time for fear of unkillable water wierds. Or, if you did, I can't understand the adamant defense of those first editions as being the best on offer when 4E (certainly not my favourite) offers streamlined play for uni-dimensional character builds (guess what? You've got 5 powers, so go have fun!).
On top of all of that, the 3X extensive ruleset allows you to maintain balance while imagining as much, as little, or anywhere in between for your game (which is where I suspect the answer to the game balance question lies).
Am I wrong?
]]>Yes, but mostly no.
Dungeons and Dragons does not represent even a part of any real-world religion that we at U20 know of. However, like most great stories, faith and religion are often important to the game.
The pantheon of deities presented with the core rulebooks for D&D could be compared to the Gods of ancient Rome, where a given God rules over a portfolio; think a God of the Sun, a God of Death, or a God of Fortune. These Gods grant some of their followers special powers in the game, and often work through their followers to further their aims and protect their worshippers, much like the stories of mythology. This is a common theme in the D&D campaigns I've been a part of. After all, who makes a better villain or ally than a God?
As some have discovered (and as I hope you've realized), everything in a D&D world can be changed--the rulebooks are there to provide a framework. As such, there's nothing to stop you from playing in a world where there is one God, or where the population believes in no Gods at all, where everything is just like ancient Rome, or any other situation you can imagine. This makes D&D a fun and rewarding game to design adventures for, and also makes it a fantastic teaching tool and creative outlet.
Saying D&D is religious is misleading, but in every game I've played in faith has been a factor, even if it wasn't central to the plot.
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I'm sure most of my readers aren't learning anything new from this, so to those of you who realize what a beneficial experience tabletop roleplaying can be I ask whether I've captured your feelings on the hobby. Would you add anything? If you knew someone who was concerned about religion, but wanted to learn about the game, what would you tell them?
]]>Judging by the many comments (ha ha), you all obviously enjoyed yesterday's post about horror and why I think I'm so great. Let's skip that this time. Instead, I'd really like to know about your favourite villain, regardless of what side of the screen you were on when you met her.
I regret that I'm having trouble coming up with a favourite villain of my own. Not because I have too many to choose from, but too few (in my games, or in others). Based on that alone I could probably use some help in this aspect of running RPGs.
Does he fight the PCs with his brains, with martial skill, or with kindness? Is she manipulative, or simply honorable and on the wrong side of the conflict? Among thousands of dice rolls and hundreds of dead goblins, liches, dragons, and giants, why does your favourite villain stand out?
]]>Well, maybe it's not that scary. And okay, sure, you found me out--I had only one other entry to compete with in this contest (and there were two prizes, so we both won).
Despite the lack of entries, I'm thrilled to have won, and I think the adventure I outlined has serious horror potential with the right DM. These are the reasons why.
While no players really believe that their DM isn't coiled to spring a horrible monster into their faces at all times, I tried hard to make the opening situation very different from the usual adventure kick-off, hoping to make the adventure that much scarier and surprising when it got rolling. I tried to contrast the peace talks and a night of merry-making with the sudden onset of an ultimate enemy, but things are much worse than they seem...
When I designed Lord Rondin (the villain), I also wanted to contrast the gentle wisdom of the elves with unspeakable acts of cannibalistic murder. If I had had more space I would have statted out his wife, Lady Elsabeth, as an unsatiable, bestial flesh-devourer, still in her evening finery.
I wanted to create an environment of fear, anxiety, and unnatural horror with A Lord's Dying Wish.
The Grand Hall of Kintorin is a labyrinth of stone halls, wooden tunnels, a hundred doors, and open-air skylights--the perfect place for a dozen or so mostly-unarmed peace-talk delegates to be stuck with the mutated spawn of evil for a full day. The stone airways from chamber to chamber would allow faint screams, scratchings and shufflings, and rhythmic, unceasing thumping and tearing sounds to be heard. Scrawlings in ink and blood could cover the walls. Doors could be slammed.
Behind every door could be other delegates that need help, infected delegates that may turn on the PCs, or Lord Rondin and his 'children.'
Nothing I offered in A Lord's Dying Wish is new, but everything familiar has been twisted at least a little. For example, the common "tavern" scene of merrymaking at the beginning would have a shadow of mistrust and pomp surrounding it that few adventurers would have experienced before (and may mislead the players into believing that the real adventure will come the following day when the peace talks begin). The PCs are armed, but the peace talks forbid them anything larger than daggers in the Grand Hall (they'll have to find better weapons if they're to battle the dark spore).
Most importantly, though, I really wanted the villains to be twisted and horrific, but undenidably familiar and human (or Elven, in this case); I wanted to hit the very bottom curve of the uncanny valley.
Despite Lord Rondin's mutations he is still calm, reassuring, and fatherly--he's still the old friend that the other delegates have known well for years--and even as he drills his terrible new tongue into an exposed neck or cheek or stomach he explains his quiet desire for everyone to join his family in peace.
I've only played in one horror game, and while elements of horror have been in every game I've run, I've never DMed a full-fledged horror-themed adventure, or even a session. I'm sure many of you reading this have a great RPG horror story to share, or some tips to throw out, and I'd be happy to hear them (along with everyone else reading this).
Happy gaming, and happy Halloween.
]]>I've had trouble nailing down roles for some of my critters, the sculpin included. His recharging ability is pure skirmisher, but having a go-to ranged spinefire with accompanying tactics seems to set him up as artillery.
Likewise, none of my monsters end up being brutes, unless I set out to limit them to that right from the get-go, as I did with my terrifying entry to YMIAT's Hallow's Eve contest. (Even then it was a challenge not to add those delicious controller-esque or soldier-ish abilities...) Even my soldiers have lurker qualities, like the Giant Octopus's camouflage.
*shrugs* I just gotta be me. Do you ever have trouble pinning down the right role for your custom critters? Are brutes boring?
If you're a member of YMIAT you can download my contest entry here. Finally, unless your name is Ron, shame on your for not entering!
]]>That little pearl has probably been offered up in pithier ways by clever(er) people, but it's a truth I believe in, reinforced by years of play. In game terms, it's a huge part of why losing a character to poor rolling, losing levels to a vampire's slam, or losing experience to create a magic item in 3X all suck so badly. Let's talk about the latter, and about ways to improve it.
World of Warcraft does a few things well, and I think they've hit on something really enjoyable with their enchantment profession--you disenchant magic items and use the resulting magical byproducts like ingredients in a recipe to make other items. It's straight-forward and offers the simplest system we can adopt if we want to create magic items without losing those precious experience points.
The only metric we have across all types of magic items in Dungeons and Dragons is their gold piece value, so let's start there. For simplicity and balance, let's say that you have to offer up a similar gold piece value of magic items in some kind of disenchantment process--let's steal 4E's excellent ritual idea and apply it here--and use the resulting magical essences, whatever they may be, to fuel those item creation feats we like so much. A successful ritual could result in different qualities of magical essence based on the skills of the characters involved, and a base gp value of 1/2 merchant price could be applied to all disenchants. The result? We get cool materials to make what we really want, rather than being at the DMs fickle mercies.
We could even take it a step further and allow characters without item creation feats to use raw magical essences to make magical items of their own (the Use Magic Device skill could be repurposed for this). We could offer non-spellcasters the ability to enter this mysterious, rewarding realm with new feats and new uses for old skills. Finally, this opens up a lot of great possibilities for treasure--magical essence could come in dust form, gem form, or bar form, each having different strengths and specific uses for different types of items.
And we'd finally have a use for all those magic items that tend to clutter up our bags of holding at middle and higher levels.
Do you know of any rules like this? Got any ideas of your own? Please, share.
]]>Monahan *was* my monk. After being chewed into negative hit points by a giant crocodile, Monahan lay gurgling nearby while the others finished the fight. At round two of my forced siesta we had a good laugh as the cleric stood near to the dying monk and announced that he had *just* the spell to handle this: Calm Emotions! (To be fair, there was still a giant enraged bear nearby, but I took solace in the cleric's proximity, believing I would not die.
We dropped out of initiative in round 3 as the giant bear relaxed. Monahan gurgled, and the party started looting bodies.
Round 4, and there is talk of detecting magic and itemization of treasure, but not so much as a heal check for my monk.
No one got to me until round 7, by which time I was at a house-ruled negative Constitution score for hit points. I had ceased to be.
About a minute later the cleric's player looked up from his laptop and said "Okay, I have a tonne of healing. Who needs it?"
Players like our cleric, who can't seem to focus at any given point on what's in front of him, have always frustrated me, but this is the first time I have paid directly for the negligence. I'm pretty sure that he still has no idea that I bled out, rather than being killed directly by the giant croc. What can you do with a player like that?
Now, at any time, I could have simply turned to the druid, the cleric, or even our warblade, and said "please heal me before I die," but I didn't. I didn't want to metagame the situation, and I misguidedly wanted the cleric to be responsible for what was happening in-game for once. Further, I may have been bored with playing my monk archer. But still, am I crazy for "letting" myself die?
Crazy or not, the prospect of a new character is always exciting, and despite the urging of another player to continue playing Monahan, I might just roll a bard, a sorceror-turned summoner, or a shammy (and if you have any feat, race, or class suggestions for any of those, I'd love to hear them).
]]>I'm rounding out the roster today with my Kelp Mummy. There's also the Giant Octopus from a few weeks ago, and I've got quite the coastal skirmisher waiting in the wings. Let me know what you think.
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