Baldur's Gate Remake for NWN2 Update

Firewine Bridge

Was looking through the forums tonight and ran across these little gems from the modders responsible for the ongoing BG1 remake project:

drechner:
Well, it looks like the campaign will be fully playable in a couple weeks! After that, it's polish, polish, and some more polish for a few (at least 3) months. With this in mind, I think we're looking at September. 

Shallina:
As today only the hafling sidequest (Gullykin's surrounding) are missing. (around 5 exteriors area, including a little village, a dunjon, and less than 10 interiors area for the village) All the rest has its area done and scripted. So all chapters, and the extension (TOSC) are functionnal.

Pretty exciting!

Non-AC Defenses in DnD Next

Attack vs. Reflex?  No!  Make a Dexerity Saving Throw!

I'm working my way through the DnDNext playtest documents.  One of the first sections details the ability scores, and ultimately relates to one of the bigger changes to mechanics that I've seen thus far: changes to non-AC defenses.

In 4e, an attack could target one's AC.  But it could also target one of three non-AC defenses: fortitude, reflex, or will.  The names of those three defenses stems from earlier editions, of course.  But the innovation in 4e was that they all worked like AC: the attacker rolls a d20, adds appropriate bonuses, and then compares that with the target's AC, Reflex, Fortitude, or Will defense.  The one you targeted depended on the power.

In DnD Next, this is changing.  Attacks against AC work the same as they did in 4e (and earlier editions), and this includes (as I understand it) certain spells in which one makes an attack roll against AC.  But there are no longer such things as reflex, fortitude, or will defenses.  Instead, when one casts as a spell at a target, the target often will have the opportunity to make a saving throw so that they can resist or avoid the spell.  This is basically the same mechanic as 3e, except that these saving throws no longer are limited to the traditional reflex, fort, and will saves.  Instead, as far as I can tell, a given spell could conceivably target any one of a target's six attributes!  Spells like fireball that traditionally have reflex saves use a dexterity saving throw.  Charm spells use a wisdom saving throw.  But there are apparently spells that can require an intelligence saving throw, or a charisma saving throw.

I really liked the 4e mechanic because of its consistency: pick a power, roll a d20, add bonuses, compare to a defense.  It made playing DnD with kids easier, too, because there wasn't much math for them to do outside of their turn.  I still like that version better.

That said, I see that they're doing with this new system.  A major design emphasis in DnD Next, discussed a few months ago on the various Wizards blogs, was to enhance the importance of abilities within the game.  This is a manifestation of that.  Rather than having a zillion skills that each character must track, and rather than having three additional named defenses to keep in mind, players instead (mostly) just track their ability modifiers and use them to make saving throws and checks.  It makes for a simpler character sheet, because now there are three fewer defense numbers, not to mention a far smaller list of skills (you only track those in which you have specific training).  Furthermore,there is an elegance in the consistency of how skills and saving throws work that I do recognize.  And I LOVE the Next skill system because of its combination of flexibility and simplicity, so that alone may justify the non-AC defense changes.

There are some other benefits to the saving throw mechanic.  For one thing, by essentially putting the attack roll in the hands of the target, players will get to roll dice more often when it's not their turn.  This should improve engagement at the table, and it provides players with a sense of control when being targeted by a spell...even if it's imagined control.

It also makes character creation a bit more interesting.  Min-maxing suddenly becomes a bit more dangerous, because going with the minimum in, say, Charisma suddenly might have combat implications.  In 4e, as long as you had a talky-type in your party to handle roleplaying situations, a character could get away with going with the minimum in charisma, dexterity, or intelligence because there was little cost to doing so.  Now, doing so instantly makes you vulnerable to an entire set of spells.  Some saving throws will probably be more common (probably Dex, Con, and Wis if I was to guess).  But the devious dungeon master can choose monsters with appropriate spells to target their min-maxed player's weaker defenses.  This is also going to put a huge premium on any items or powers that can boost all saving throws, as well as (because of their pervasive effects) any items that boost a character's ability scores.

So while I do still like the 4e system, I'm going to sign off on the saving throw mechanic in DnDNext...at least until I get a chance to test it in game!

DnD Next Playtest Begins

Wizards began their Dungeons and Dragons Next open playtest today.  I just signed up and am eagerly awaiting the e-mail that will give me a download link to get my materials.

I'm honestly not sure if/when I'll be able to actually try out the game.  My "group," which was a family thing, has gone well in some ways and not well in others.  I'm unsure about whether I'll be continuing it for reasons that I don't really want to get into.  My feeling is that it is probably done for a while.  It's a shame, because I really enjoyed DMing.  I think it's likely that I'll be able to play some day in the future.  But for now, it just gets in the way of other things I should be doing...not worth it.

In the meantime, though, I am going to read through everything and offer a few thoughts on the contents.  I've been following the DnD Next discussions on the Wizards blogs and am interested in what they have in mind.  There is a real emphasis on faster play, which I think is a good idea.  I'm also pretty happy with the discussion of how character themes as a way of packaging feats together, and providing backstory for a character at the same time.  

But other times, I think they're ignoring some important innovations that DnD 4e brought to the table. 

For example, in his recent Legends and Lore article, Mearls discussed a "new" role for hit dice.  Apparently, they are going to be used during short rests to allow you to regain hit points.  And then, if you take an extended rest, you can regain those hit dice.  ...  sounds familiar?  Sounds a lot like healing surges to me, but with a bit more randomness to them.  I'm not complaining, really--I really like the healing surge mechanic, and how it, along with the second wind, reduces the need to have a healing class in the party and extends the party's lasting power through multiple dungeons.  

Also, while I'll know more when I get my e-mail and actually read the rules, I've seen more and more discussion of saving throws in a way that sounds much more like the 3e mechanic than how they work in fourth edition.  I really like the 4e system of rolling against one of four defenses (AC, Reflex, Constitution, Fortitude), as it allows for much more consistency in how the game works and increases the perceived value of non-AC defenses.  It may ultimately not matter a lot in terms of the math, but I dig the simplicity of it.

I've also recently been seeing discussion of whether opportunity attacks will remain in the core rules.  Angry had a great blog post about this last week, and I'd basically echo his thoughts: attacks of opportunity do a variety of things to enhance the importance of melee classes, and to enhance the costs of gaining ideal positioning (and thus the feats/powers that allow one to overcome opportunity attacks).  Without them, I think the game suffers.  The Facebook DnD game is a case in point: there's no point to including a fighter, as fighters can't do much to defend weaker party members without attacks of opportunity to keep enemies from sidestepping them.

I'm also a little hesitant about the reversion to "Vancian" magic for the wizard and cleric.  I actually really liked the 4e power system of at-will, encounter, and daily powers for most of the classes, especially as implemented in the Essentials classes.  I don't think there's a need for a zillion choices, at least in terms of how many things one character can do at a table.  For wizards, at least, it sounds like they're going to a hybrid system of at-will spells (cantrips) plus "Vancian" magic.  Cantrips would be enhanced to have actual value as at-will abilities.  I think this can work--I don't want to go back to the days of the wizard spending his/her time shooting crossbows.  

In any case, that's enough hand waving for now.  I'll have more to say once I get my hands on the rules! 

Alazander Sells Book Trilogy

I wanted to send huge congrats to Alazander for the sale of his first book.  And not just his first book, but his first trilogy!  I'm looking forward to reading it.

Alazander's Post

News item at TheBookseller.com

Neverwinter Nights Community Site

The Neverwinter Nights Community Site site has been launched with the intent of serving as a central information site for new players to learn about and get involved in the original Neverwinter Nights.  It's a great idea, given that the old bioware site is down.  There you can find links to the Vault (of course!), as well as a wealth of other resources.  I was particularly pleased to see the links to the 1.69 patch critical rebuild files for NWN1, as well as the quick primer on how to install custom content.

Also included are prominent links to the bioware forums and to the Good Old Games download site.

Great site, folks!

Apathy toward Mask of the Betrayer

So a few months ago I finally grabbed Mask of the Betrayer and gave it a whirl.  I made it into the second chapter of the game, and at this point have sort of stalled out on it.

On one hand, I've found the overall plot to be very compelling.  It's mysterious, has a good, epic feel, and has a cool mix of horror and excitement.  I've enjoyed a number of the non-player characters, both companions and otherwise.  Kaelyn the Dove, in particular, is just wonderful--and has terrific voice acting to boot!

Ultimately, though, I've found the execution of the game to be rather flat.  Some parts are very good.  But others, and in particular the combat, is horrible.  There have been a few fun fights.  But other things have felt so completely out of place that it really destroys any sense of immersion the plot otherwise should have justified.  For example, when you first arrive in town, your level 20-something, epic-tier, nearly god-like character gets involved in a bar fight.  A bar fight!  Seriously?  Some drunk at a bar is taking on my character, and doesn't die in a nanosecond once combat begins?  Other times, when walking along a ridge, I encountered a long series of identical spawns of wyverns.  It was the sort of encounter you might expect as a level-2 party, encountering wolves and such in the forest.  But wyverns as a filler monster?  Why not just throw out some red dragons too?

It just didn't work for me.  Epic-tier adventures are hard to write.  They require constant recognition of the power of the PC.  This is why most good epic adventures spend most of their time in other planes--it's hard to have more than a handful of characters capable of taking on a level 20 character in a place like Faerun.  From what I've seen thus far--and this might be all I ever see of it--the story here is good.  But the execution just isn't good enough.  I'd much rather play...something else.

So, I'm going to archive my Mask of the Betrayer saved game for now.  It's time to give Storm of Zehir a whirl.  I'm hoping that, as a low-level adventure, it will be more to my liking.  I tend to be more into the low- to mid-level stuff these days anyway.

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

I never got a chance to post about the upcoming Baldur's Gate games that were announced a few weeks ago.  

From what I gather, Overhaul Games is going to be doing a complete re-release of the old games for the PC, Mac, and iPad.  I'm somewhat excited about this.  I certainly loved the original BG games, and the idea of working across the sword coast landscape again--or battling Irenicus--is enough to light a spark inside me.

I still have my old CD's of both games, and haven't even considered trying to run them for a long time.  I'm embarrassed to say that I never quite finished BG1 (was very close, and somehow just got frustrated...wasn't much of a tactician at that point and got creamed by a fairly simple encounter), so it could be fun to try it again.  BG2 I did finish and love from start to finish, though I quickly (instantly?) got frustrated with the expansion for BG2.  It would be fun to give them another go.

On the other hand, these games represent tremendous time investments.  Will they hold up?  I'm hopeful that they'd re-do the art to run at better than 800x600, but I'm not sure if that's really in the cards for this release.  Furthermore, how will the game mechanics hold up?  I'm not very excited about going back to the days of THAC0, timed effects on spells, random-roll characters, etc.  I have a hard enough time finishing a module like Aielund II or Prophet, and have yet to even try Storm of Zentir.  There's a lot of gaming on my plate.  Do I really want to invest 100+ hours into a game I already played?

I'll keep thinking about it and following the news about this game as it develops.  It probably won't be very expensive(??), so I might try it just to play around candlekeep and meet Imoen again for the first time.

Module Comments: Salerons' Gambit 2

What the hell is this guy saying?

My vote: 9 - Very good, deserves a look
Character: lv. 2 bard, advanced to level 3 by module's end.

This module continues the previous module's story: you are searching for Saleron, a strange wizard who professed to know something of your father.  He has run off to Silverymoon, and you want to find him.

That's pretty much the module.  There's not a lot of overall plot development beyond what you experienced in the first.  What you get instead is a chance to explore Silverymoon and its inhabitants, experiencing numerous well-done side quests as you search for a way to contact the wizard.  The module is well-polished...but somehow, it felt less fresh than the first.  My bard has starting to get a decent complement of equipment during this module, including a few minor items.  This was welcome, but at the same time it made the module feel less distinct than the first and it's ultra-sparse conditions.  Combat was challenging, though it wasn't until near the end that I finally pushed my bard back behind the front lines and concentrated on playing more of a support role to assist the fighter henchman.

The best part of this module are the little flourishes.  There is a terrific, random scene with some music students that was a pleasure to watch.  I'm not sure what it's like for other classes, but for the bard it was highly customized.  The descriptions of specific style changes and such were sophisticated (at least, they seemed it--I know nothing about music), and my bard was ultimately able to play a key role in a minor bit of foolery.  I'm guessing that most other classes experience this differently.  Similarly, the optional conversations with the henchmen--especially the fighter--were very rich.  The ending of the module is easily its best component, as it features a difficult personal dilemma for the main character.  Huge kudos for this, as it really makes the module.

Essentials Race & Class List

Very small thing: I'm rolling up (for fun) some characters from each of the Essentials classes.  I created a small spreadsheet that shows the various ability bonuses you get, and the special abilities they use.  I also identified which classes fit best with each race, based on nothing more than the key abilities noted in the Heroes books and the races that give you bonuses to those abilities.  Here it is:


(if that doesn't work, here's a direct link to the spreadsheet)

A few quick hits:

• Drow gets the most class matches, thanks to the Dex + Wis or Cha combo.  Bah, I hate drow.
• Half-Orcs not surprisingly make terrific slayers.  But I was surprised to see them show up as elite athletic thieves.
• Knight, Slayer, and Cavalier all clock in as having just one ideal race.  
• Least versatile race?  Eladrin, which only make elite Mages based on the abilities (though teleport could certainly make an eladrin dexstriker, like a rogue or scout, pretty darn interesting).
• Most accepting class?  Hexblade, which needs good charisma and either good dex or con.

Module Review: Prophet, Chapter 1 - By the Will of Kings and Mortals

My vote: 10 - A masterpiece, genuinely groundbreaking.
My character: lv. 8 halfling rogue/ranger from The Cave of Songs.  Ended level 10.

The Prophet, Chapter 1, was released in early 2006.  It did show up on my original nwn1 playlist, but for whatever reason--perhaps it was my general dislike of rogues at the time, for which I perceived the module was designed--I never played it.

Well, I finally sat down and played it over the past month or so.  And I see what all the fuss is about.

This Elven City Tileset is amazing.

Without spoiling the prelude module, you find yourself in search of a long-lost king who vanished mysteriously many years ago.  You essentially have two choices: try to find a bard who might know something, or try to find an ancient keep deep in the forest.  I went for the first option first, which was certainly the low-point of the module; a slow and laborious delve into spider-infested mines that ultimately bears little fruit.  From there, however, I went off to the keep, and the module really picked up.  Ultimately, I was treated to one of the most visually stunning modules ever released for Neverwinter Nights 1.  It is loaded with custom content, and that content is used expertly.  The mountains are just glorious.  Even more impressive, however, was the story.  It begins as a tale of an ancient and perhaps insane king, but becomes far more personal as you interact (via notes, stories, and sometimes, ghosts) with the characters in this story.  Eventually, both the PC and the NPC's find themselves directly involved in the tale, which leads to a variety of surprising revelations.  It is masterfully done.  Rarely have I played a module that sent this many shivers down my spine, but this one was loaded with those moments.

The module plays in a fairly linear fashion, but one thing that Baldecaran does very well is that he adds a variety of small vignettes that you can opt to take on as side "quests."  Rarely are these assigned, per se, and some are just neat to look at.  But you can often have yourself a fun little adventure and often gain a small amount of treasure along the way.  Combat is pretty well balanced throughout, though it got a bit easy near the end of the module.  I'll note that equipment is interesting here.  Perhaps it's because I'm a rogue, but I found myself having a hard time maxing out my AC and weapon enhancement in this module due to limited selection...but on the other hand, physical damage resistance, elemental resistance, and protection against status effects (poison, disease, level drain) were all fairly easy to procure and extremely useful.  I'm looking forward to the day I can find that really great shortsword.  But for the time being, I'm making do with what I found.  As a final note, level progression is pretty slow: I gained two levels during the entire module, and the author's estimated 25 hours sounds about right for total playtime commitment.  This surprises, as I really didn't notice.

I don't vote a 10 very often.  But this is a really special module.  I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here!

Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum on sale: $9.99

Wow.

You get the original NWN2, plus Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir.  You do not get Mysteries of Westgate, which is a shame.  But that's another $9.99 at the Atari store.

Got my old gaming PC running again

I've been playing NWN1 on my laptop, which works ok except that it invariably freezes after about 45 minutes of play.  I'm not sure why.  Might be  heat thing.  Or it might be Windows XP emulation thing.

So, I finally figured out how to get my old gaming rig (purchased to run NWN2) running in the family room.  It's  surprisingly accessible and non-disruptive to family life, though the fan is still loud as all hell.  It's running NWN1 flawlessly, with sound via some wireless headphones I bought a while back.  It's really great--I forgot how much difference a full-sized monitor makes.

Now if only I could find my nwn2 disks....but they seem to have gone AWOL.  I have no idea where they might be.  Would be fun to fire it up and see what people in the modding community did with it.

Scanning Tokens for use in MapTool

The first adventure my group is likely to have upon arriving in Fallcrest is an encounter with the River Rats of the Lower Quays.  I have this all designed in Masterplan, but I'm building it in MapTool so I can run it with my group online.

Tonight's job: Scan in my Threats to the Nentir Vale tokens.  This was a pretty quick job.  I scanned at 300 dpi, and then applied a blur filter in Gimp to get rid of the pixelation that seems to come with scans of printed materials like this.

Just add heroes!

The result is very nice (the blur just undoes some needless sharpening that the scanner seems to add), and very easy to copy over into TokenTool!  Now that I have it ready, I can create tokens in MapTool quickly for anything in this second Monster Vault.  The result, when coupled with an export from Masterplan's fabulous tile-based map editor, is an awfully darn good looking encounter (right).

I need to playtest a few possible ways to model the Market Green Grifter's "play dead" power.  I could actually kill her in MapTool, but at this point I'm leaning toward just making her go unconscious for a round so that I don't break anything.  That way, MapTool should properly handle area spell damage and such that might affect her...  and heroes can still attack her if they can beat the insight check.  We'll see what I come up with.

As a side note, I absolutely adore Monster Vault: Threats to Nentir Vale.  Monster Vault was fine, but the availability of a specific setting allows this one to be far more specific and far more interesting.  The monsters are varied and each has interesting aspects to it: both stat blocks and story.  The villains are terrific.  And best of all, for those not playing in Nentir Vale, it's all pretty easy to plop the content down in anyone's home campaign setting.  Highly recommended!

DnD with kids: use of maptool

I haven't been very active of late.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, over Thanksgiving, I played a lot of DnD with "my group," which includes my daughter, sister-in-law, and her two children.  We had a great time, but learned a few things in the process:

1. It's virtually impossible to play more than one encounter at a time with 5- and 6-year olds.  And even then, if the encounter goes over 45 minutes, they're pretty much hopeless.

2. The math isn't a horrible barrier for 5- and 6-year olds.  But with the focus on die rolling and math, the roleplaying immersion is easily lost, because it takes everything they have to make it work.  This goes for me too--since I'm keeping track of the girls' HP in addition to the monsters, I'm involved in every move, and it's easy to forget to do things like roleplay the villain and have him taunt the players.

3. A level 5 encounter is waay too much for my party of level 1 players.  If you've played Twisted Halls, you know the final encounter: three level 3 soldier skeletons, 1 hulking zombie, and 1 necromancer.  The necromancer doesn't even get involved until one of the undead perish.  Even so, the party was pretty overmatched, with our slayer going down in the second round, and damage dealing far outstripping the healing abilities of the party.  And that's even with Smite Undead dispatching the zombie down the hallway for several rounds (pushed 6, can only move 4 squares).

I ended up having to fudge rolls like crazy to keep the party afloat.  Even so, everyone was bloodied by the end, and everyone had spent ther healing spells and second wind.

4. Not playing often makes me feel frantic to play whenever we do have a chance to play.  We ended up playing several times per day for three days in a row, which I think we starting to get old for everyone at the end of the day.

Solutions?

I don't have a solution for #3, aside from more slowing increasing the difficulty level than I had been doing.  But I may have a tentative solution to #1 and #2: Maptool.

Maptool is a package that allows you to conduct DnD games (or most other games) online.  This is why I looked at it in the first place, as half of the group lives two hours away and we only get together every few months.

Thanks to the impressive work of other Maptool users and developers, however, there are frameworks available for download that allow for varied levels of integration of 4e rules directly into the software.  Some essentially are designed to just help you keep track of each PC and NPC's stats, and leave it to the DM to impose damage, conditions, etc, as appropriate.  Others are more in depth and allow you to automate many aspects of DnD combat.

MapTool + Rumble + Masterplan is amazing.

The one I've been setting up is Rumble's 4e Framework, version 5.  While its character management isn't as nice as some other frameworks, (it only tracks weapons and implements, doesn't calculate AC or defenses, etc), it is pretty easy to use this framework to automate most aspects of combat:  attack/damage rolls, damage dealt, resistances, condition imposition and expiration, etc.  In fact, the only thing it doesn't do automatically are a) forced movement (the DM still has to move the monster), b) delayed condition changes, like sleep spells causing unconsciousness on the first failed saving throw, and c) prompting a player to make a saving throw off of its turn in response to a cleric power (though you can include text reminders to prompt a DM to do each of those events).  Everything else, for the most part, is done pretty easily with zero knowledge of scripting.

It does take some time to learn how the framework operates, and to get the characters and monsters into the software.  But when you do, the result is something that almost resembles a video game!  I think this will work very well for my group.  Going back to the problems above:

1) This should speed up combat dramatically.  What was once a minute long sequence of rolling, adding bonuses (kids take a while to do this), announcing the attack number, rolling damage, adding again, announcing the damage number is now three clicks: once to select your attack power, once to target, once to hit "ok" (assuming no modifiers are needed like CA, but even that's just another click away).  The faster the combat, the more focused everyone will be at the "table."

2) Less math.  There still will be some, and I'd like them to be aware of it.  They'll see the numbers, and we'll talk about damage modifiers now and then.  But at the same time, they'll have more fun if they can focus on the roleplaying, rather than just adding attack modifiers to dice rolls.  It also frees me up a lot.  I won't have to try to remember every status effect (even with colored hair band markers, that's hard to do) and everything else going on, which will make it easier for me to roleplay as well.

3) While this doesn't directly solve the problem of encounter difficulty catching me off guard, it will allow me to playtest challenging encounters on my own really easily.  I want to do the occasional level+3 encounter, but I want it to be possible!  With Rumble's framework all set up, DnD plays like a video game!

That said, I will have a hard time fudging attack/damage rolls using the software, so I'll have to have a back-up intervention scenario should I achieve a TPK...

4) We get to play outside of family gatherings.  By playing online, we can be less frantic about getting our gaming in when everyone gets together.  This should make family events less about DnD than this past Thanksgiving was.  I know I'll like that, because it'll let me care a lot less about whether we get to play when people get together.

Anyway, I'll have more on MapTool (and Masterplan, which I'm also using and loving) in the future.  But if you haven't checked it out, you should really do so.  I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl with actual players....once I get my monsters and maps all set up for our adventure! :)

Going without the DDI Character Builder

A little over a month ago, I spontaneously decided to subscribe to DnD Insider for a month to see what I was missing.  I was generally pretty happy with what I got for my money.  Dungeon magazine, in particular, as full of great ideas, and the monster editor was a fabulous resource as I started working on my first adventure.

Probably the most essential application on there, however, was the Character Builder.  While I enjoy the process of character building, as a new player I'm prone to making errors (e.g. I just discovered a few nights ago that shields give you a bonus to both AC and Dex).  Furthermore, the product that the character builder creates is very nice; the character sheets were far easier to use for my new/young players, and the power cards were terrific.  Furthermore, I loved how easy it was to roll up a character, paruse the various feats and powers, etc.  It reminded me a lot of the Neverwinter Nights character creation engine, in fact.

The problem with DDI is that it's expensive.  My wife is already bothered enough by my return to overt geekery over the past few months.  Spending $70/year on a subscription to DDI isn't something that is going to be an easy sell in my household.

So instead, as my subscription lapsed a week or so ago, I began looking around to see what else I could use to manage my characters.  After a fair bit of trial and error, here's what I came up with.

The Character Sheet

I wanted something that would do some of the basic, repetitive calculations for me.  The logical thing to do, therefore, was to build something in my old standby, Excel.  After spending about 15 minutes working on it, however, and realizing how much work it would take to get it formatted prettily, I decided to look around and see what people had already done. :)

There are some very complicated spreadsheets out there that try to essentially replicate the Character Builder in terms of scope (e.g. this one).  I wanted something more flexible, though, so that I could work up the characters myself and only rely on the sheet to do basic things like add my +1/2 level every time I leveled up.

I found this one by Rohin Joyce, which I just adore.  It does all the basic calculations for you, but leaves a lot of room for customization.  At this point, I'm using it with only small modifications to create my characters.  But then, I'm pulling data from it to create a kid-friendly character sheet that I put together myself.  Here's the result:

This represents my attempt to create a noob/kid friendly character sheet that, when used with power cards, has most of the stuff they will need to operate their characters.  It is very slimmed down.  You get defenses at the top left.  You get your basic attacks and whatnot right below that.  You get hit points right below that. The top-right has initiative, speed, and your passive senses.  And the bottom-right has all the skills and attribute modifiers (borrowing from the Essentials character sheets, I'm nesting the skills within the attributes). Importantly, as these are kids, there's a huge portrait area that can hold whatever picture my player wants (as long as I can find it on Google image search).

Obviously, I left out a lot of stuff.  I didn't even give them their attribute scores, for example--just the modifiers.  But as Mike Shea has pointed out (somewhere, sorry, I don't have a link), all that really matters is the modifier anyway!  Omitting attribute scores just saves newbie confusion.  I'm also omitting deities (which won't play a big role in my game, at least for now), action point trackers (I use tokens), feats, etc.  All of that stuff is on the other character sheet, which can be printed out and stapled beneath this one.

With the exception of the notes part, and the graphic, which will need to change for each character where it pulls its info, it's entirely automated.  Fill out Rohin's character sheet and all of this populates.  It's just more approachable for my players to use this in the game.  If someone is interested, I'll post it.  Just let me know.

What About the Power Cards?

A nice excel-based character sheet is great, but I really became infatuated with the power cards that the Character Builder generates.  My players responded very well to them in our last session, so I wanted to make sure that I still have something workable.  I originally planned to just make them in excel, but I ran across this thread about using a Magic the Gathering card editor, with an all-text template, as an alternative.  Here is a screenshot of the result:

I absolutely adore these.  I'm able to make cards that are bigger, cleaner, and easier to use than what the character builder generates.  Even cooler, I can use it to generate treasure cards in advance that I can hand to players as they uncover magic items.  Here's what I'm handing out over the rest of the Twisted Halls:

How cool is that?

What have you done to work around the DDI Character Builder?

Essentials Magic Item List

I'm relying on the treasure tables in the Dungeon Master's Kit to distribute treasure in an appropriate way within my compaign.  Thanks to R.M. Walker's Automated Treasure Finder spreadsheet, this is pretty easy--though I had to edit his spreadsheet to include a means of adjusting for party size.

The one stumbling block to this process has been finding appropriate magic items.  The DM Kit tables will tell you to give an item of a specific level and rarity value (common, uncommon, etc).  I'm currently running with only the Dungeon Master's Kit and Heroes of the Fallen Lands, and as a result I have a limited supply of magic items at my fingertips.  This can make it hard to find, for example, a level 6 uncommon item, especially if I'm trying to get something for a particular player.  And the process is made all the harder by the fact that I haven't found a good index of the magic items in these books.  So, I decided to make one.

As I acquire other sources (I'd really like to get Mordenkainen's...), I will no doubt add to this spreadsheet.  But for now, this is what I have.  I'm posting it here in case someone else can use the info.

List of Magic Items, by level and rarity, in Dungeon Master's Kit and Heroes of the Fallen Lands

Today, we defeated the Frog Wizard

After a bit of time off, we resumed playing rpgKids and defeated the Frog Wizard! Huzzah!

Damage by 3d6

I'm kind of a sucker for these things. My favorite part of this one is guy drumming with a dagger, but some of the lyrics are fun.  "Once again his armor class is not enough to save his ass!"

Hell, yeah!
 
Hat tip to critical hits link round-up from last week.

D & D Doodle Index (and Love)

Edit: I discovered tonight (11/15) that the author below has removed a substantial number of his old posts.  Whether that has something to do with this post, or is just a coincidence, I don't know.  If I offended or otherwise freaked you out, Brandon, I do apologize.  I just really enjoyed your stuff.


One of the fun things about being so late on the scene with DnD 4e is that I get to discover wonderous things that people have probably known about for a long time.  One of those is the work of Brandon Kruse at DnD Doodle.  His masterpiece reimagining of Fallcrest is to the right, and has been widely circulated, often without credit.  I myself first found it at an Obsidian Portal website.

The thing that's so exciting about Brandon's work, aside from its obvious brilliance, is his cartoony style.  Since I'm largely running my campaign for a group of little kids, I want to try to keep things a bit lighter than a lot of campaigns probably do.  As such, the stock DnD art isn't always ideal.  Kruse's area maps invoke excitement and fantasy, while his character sketches have a whimsy and humor that I think the kids will find very approachable.  For this reason, I've largely abandoned my plan to get my players into the Forgotten Realms as soon as humanly possible.  The Nentir Vale will work great, mostly because I get to use this art!

I'm using Masterplan now to write my post-Twisted Halls adventure, and one feature I really like is the ability to broadcast maps to the players via a separate monitor attached to my laptop.  I'm planning to use this ability, and/or some powerpoint slides that do the same thing, to send a lot of Kruse's images to the screen.  My players will be able to see the town, the buildings they will visit, and even characters via this interface.  It should be a lot of fun.

As such, I've decided to do a quick index of Brandon's work here in this post.  I'm doing this mostly for myself, but if someone out there finds this useful, rock on.

Maps
Along the King's Road
Cave Drawing
Dwarftown (his version of Hammerfast)
Dwarftown - Top Floor
Dwarftown Underground
Fallcrest
A Generic Town
Goblin/Bandit Camp
Harkenwold
The Lonely Tower
Nenlast
Nentir winding way out of vale
The Restwell Keep on the Chaos Scar
River RoadRoad to fallcrest - Similar to below scene, but more of a map
A road through the wilderness (DM + Player)
Rushbottle and Camp Ozborg (south of Vale)
Thunderspire and surrounding areas
Winterhaven DM Map

Scenes
Another road to Fallcrest
Fallcrest in Flames
On the road to Fallcrest/Moon Hills
Winter Ruins
The Rainy City
South of Nentir Vale
Wintery farmland...or blockade

Locals
Blue Moon Alehouse
The Lucky Gnome
Nentir Inn
Nentir Inn Second Floor
Nentir Inn First Floor
Raven Roost
Tower of Waiting, Nentir Inn, Blue Moon Alehouse

Named Characters
Princeling Ardjuna
Redlock
Serim Selduzar, Orest Naerumar, High Priestess Dirina Mornbrow, Par Winomer of the Blue Moon, and Lord Walden Faren Markelhay
Grundelmar, Lannar Thistleton, Lady Allande Markelhay, Sergeant Thurmina
Sergeant Gerdrand, Lord Amos Kamroth, A River Rat, Wisara Osterman of Silver Unicorn, Kelson of Lucky Gnome
Irena Swiftwater, Nimozaran the Green, Tobolar Quickfoot, Teldorthan Ironhews
Raven Roost Roster
Gragnok, dragonborne paladin

Random Characters
Random People
Vikings
Owlbears and Orcs
Owlbears and other misc
Mostly guns, but a few fantasy, including goblin king
Wizards, lizardmen, wolves
Wizards and barbarians
Adventurers and a Kobold
A noble, robber, knight
Kids, or hobbits, plus dark rider
Goblin Golfers
Half-Orc
Randoms, w/ briest, witch, devils
Skeletons with Turbins
Gnoll Archer
Mehrat Sorcer and other creatures
Dragonborne
Merchant on road

Custom Solo Creature: The Giant Crocodile

I'm putting together a level 2 adventure for when my band of four adventurers finish up the Twisted Halls.  I'm largely going to stick to the stock materials in the Monster Vault (I think), but I wanted a non-dragon solo monster for this adventure.  So, I put together my first custom solo creature.

Set up: the adventurers are entering an actively used mine.  As a minor (miner? haha) quest, the mine foreman asks them to try to figure out what happened to one of his miners.  The adventurers walk through the mines and come upon a "break room."  The room is a part of a cave that ends in a pristine underground river with good drinking water.  The room includes bed rolls, a campfire, stools, a make-shift picnic table, etc.  Miners often use this room to eat, sleep, etc.

Adventurers will notice that there is an abandoned pick-axe near the shore.  As they approach the shore, a gigantic crocodile leaps from the water.  If you've seen Crocodile Dundee, you might remember a similar scene involving a water bottle.  If the crocodile makes a stealth check against the characters' passive perception, it gets a surprise attack round to open combat.  Here's the monster:

As you can see, it's the crocodile from the DM kit, lowered to level 2, solo-ified, and then granted some special features from the Id Fiend (lv 1 solo from Dark Sun) and a fledgeling dragon.  I also increased damage to be comparable to that of a dragon.  I think it'll be a fun monster to face, though I may need to playtest it before I throw it at them in case it's too powerful.

When they defeat the monster, adventurers may cut open his gut to find a treasure parcel, which includes a locket bearing the lost miner's name. Returning the locket completes the quest.