How tough is too tough? Encounter design in 4e

As with the prior article, if you're playing in my RPGX game and would prefer not to have your illusion of immersion damaged, you might not want to read this.  You've been warned!

Recently, I managed my first kill as a DM.  Killing a player is certainly not a goal of mine as a DM, and I felt pretty horrible about it.  In play by post games, in particular, players spend hours crafting not only their character's mechanics, but also their backstories and relationships.  Play by post as a medium is extremely good for encouraging deep roleplaying, and I've been fortunate to have a group of players who enjoy doing just that.  Therefore, it is no small thing to kill off one of their creations.

DnD 4th edition has a reputation as a system in which player death is extremely difficult to achieve.  In fact, the lack of lethality in 4th edition is one of its most common criticisms.  But without intending to do so, I managed to kill off a PC in what was intended to be a pretty uneventful encounter.

In this case, my players were working their way through a small dungeon based on a mini-delve created by Benoit over at Roving Band of Misfits.  They came upon a trapped door.  Without even bothering to check for traps, our party's Skald opened the door, launching a combat as a series of constructs came to life and attacked the party.  The biggest of the constructs rolled high on his damage dice on charge attack against our party's squishy thief, which pushed him just past his negative bloody value.  In one punch, he went from bloodied to dead.

I was pretty sad about this.  Thanks to the player's wonderful efforts to flavor the thief, he had become one of my favorite characters in the game.  And while his death has allowed for some excellent roleplaying opportunities for other characters, I still would probably have rather preferred that it not happen.  The party ended up abandoning the dungeon before they could fully appreciate the story around it, I think it hurt the group's enthusiasm for the game a bit to see that character die in a meaningless sidequest.

In any case, I've been trying to decide if my encounter design is to blame for what happened.  The DM Kit recommends the following distribution of encounter levels during each level:

• 3 encounters at the party's level.
• 1 encounter at the party's level - 1
• 3 encounters at the party's level +1
• 1 encounter at the party's level +3

Prior to this, I'd given my 1st level party three encounters, which were pegged at level 2, level 4, and level 2, respectively.  The first encounter was pretty easy.  The second was very challenging but do-able, especially because the biggest threat ran away at the end of the combat.  The third was a little scary (due to a lurker), but ultimately was over quickly.

This encounter with the constructs was technically avoidable.  Players could have rolled a series of thievery checks to disable the trap system on the door, though it would take good rolls from their thief to do so.  It was also possible to turn off the constructs with a combination of successful arcana and thievery checks during the combat, and the constructs were also set to reset if the players exited the room the way that they came (they tried neither of those approaches).  Finally, it was the only real encounter I had planned for the entire dungeon, and that the characters were fresh from an extended rest with full resources.  Therefore, given all of this, I pegged it as a level 2 encounter: hopefully challenging, and a punctuation mark on the mini-delve, but very much within their scope.

I only had four monsters to oppose my party of six:

• 1 Thaalud Constructor (Elite Brute), de-leveled from level 5 to level 4 (350 XP).
• 3 Iron Defender (Soldier), level 3 (150 XP each, 450 XP total).
• Total XP budget: 800 XP (level 2 encounter cutoff is 750 XP for a party of six)

This seems pretty reasonable, even in retrospect.  If I made a mistake, it was probably in not de-leveling the Constructor enough.  Taking it down to level 3 would still allow it to be an imposing figure, but he'd have about 20 fewer HP (as an Elite), hit slightly less hard, and have slightly weaker defenses (which were already low--he's a brute).  And given that it was a sidequest, without any real bearing on the main campaign plot, I could have knocked off one of the iron defenders to get it into level 1 encounter territory.

In the end, though, even if I would have done these things, the constructor might still very well have killed the thief.  When you use elites, solos, or lurkers--enemy types designed to make attacks that do the damage equivalent of several rounds or opponents in a single strike--it's pretty easy to kill off a player without intending to do so.  In fact, the same thing almost happened in the prior encounter when I used a level 4 lurker against the party: a character was within 1 or 2 HP of her negative bloody value.  Those things hit hard!

Lessons Learned

It may well be true that 4th edition is less lethal than prior editions of Dungeons and Dragons.  But it certainly is still very possible to kill your players by accident!  When designing combat encounters in the future, I will probably be a bit less aggressive with encounter levels, and will pay more attention to not just the monster XP budget, but also the levels of the individual monsters in the encounter.

Setting a soft limit of party level +2 to the monster level seems like a good rule of thumb (even though I've seen +3 mentioned somewhere--which is what I did with the Constructor).  I'll also probably make plot-irrelevant sidequest encounters be built at the characters' level or lower.  If I'd done two iron defenders and a level 3 Thaalud Constructor, I'd still be at 600 XP (level 1 encounter for a party of 6), and my feeling is that the players would still have felt that it was a fitting challenge in that tomb.

That said, maybe what I did was actually pretty reasonable and I'm just feeling gun-shy!  Combat is supposed to feel scary, after all.  Monsters are dangerous and unpredictable tools for the DM.  The fact that their effectiveness is dictated on the randomness of dice rolls is part of what makes the game exciting to run: even the DM doesn't know how it's going to turn out!

DMing with Improvisation

Improvisation is a big topic around the online DM community.  It is, for example, a key message from Sly Flourish's latest book, the Lazy Dungeon Master, and is the heart of countless how-to articles on DMing.  Good DMing requires one to take what the players give you interactively to spin a story.  Otherwise, players start to feel railroaded, which can ruin the sense of immersion in a living, breathing world that is so important to making a game work.

I've been DMing a game of my own for the last 6 months or so at RPGCrossing, and while I've been having a great time, it's become increasingly clear how important improvisation is.  As an example, here's a synopsis of what I put together as the opening chapter of my game, which is set in the Nentir Vale.

....If you're one of my players, you might not want to read this.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and all that. :)

My Anticipated Plan: River Rats Plague Lowtown Fallcrest

• Amara Azaer hires the PC's as adventurers to solve the problem of an extortion ring in Lowtown, Fallcrest (the default 4e starting town).
• PC's start poking around Lowtown near the Lower Quays, where a lot of the extortion has been happening.  Get ambushed by gang members, who are simply trying to rob them.
• A shifter who spies on them during the battle sneaks away, and PC's follow him to the Bluffs on the other side of lowtown where they have a minion-filled battle outside the River Rat's hideout.
• PC's find incriminating evidence in one of the buildings at the bluffs linking them to Kelson of the Lucky Gnome Taphouse.
• PC's confront Kelson at Lucky Gnome, have a boss fight, win the day, save the town, and move on to bigger and better things.

What Went Wrong: The PC's Go Off the Rails

After receiving the quest, the PC's decide to bait the thugs by posing as a rival gang at the Lucky Gnome Taphouse.

Are you kidding me?  The very first thing the PC's decide to do is go to the home of the Big Bad?  This was a blast.  Kelson, who was tending bar when the PC's showed up, made some great bluff rolls, and immediately began making plans to deal with the PC's once they arrived.

I also invented a new character, Arya, who was playing dice games (i.e. gambling) in the corner of the room.  She was based on an enemy I'd already planned to feature in the first fight, but she never had any real personality or background before there was a need for her to populate the bar.

Springboarding off of something that one of the NPC's said about the gang potentially having infiltrated the Fallcrest Guard, the PC's took steps to entice crooked guards to show up.  This included recruiting one of my PC's to spread word of a new gang operating in the area among the guard.

I hadn't thought this through when my NPC said it, but I was planning to throw a couple of guards into the final battle to justify that statement.  The PC's really latched onto it, though.  So, I instead opted to create a pair of crooked guards, which I named Horace and Jasper (Jasper was female, though), who promptly showed up at the bar and started harassing the PC's.

I was a little worried about whether it was too convenient that the players' plan would work so well.  But if nothing else, it seemed like a good way to get them out of the bar once the crooked guards left.  This actually worked brilliantly. The thief in the party immediately followed the guards to a safe house that I invented in Lowtown.  After he was subsequently captured, the rest of the party followed, and I had my ambush battle.  

I decided to try to lead the party back to the Lucky Gnome now, with Kelson heading off to the hideout near the bluffs to organize the gang's effort against this new thread.

Rather than head back to the Gnome, the party decided to send Jasper, who they'd captured, to entice her leader...who they had not yet identified as Kelson...to come to the safe house to parlay.

Little did the PC's know--though perhaps they should have guessed--but Kelson already knew what they were up to.  Therefore, rather than show up to have a conversation, Kelson showed up with the full strength of his gang behind him to wipe out the PC's.  This was a tough fight, but it ultimately resulted in Kelson (somewhat controversially...more on that some other time) fleeing once his gang was decimated.

I hadn't planned for the party to meet Kelson until they hit their third battle in the sequence, but the story demanded it.  I also hadn't planned for him to escape, really, but I wanted to get the group out to the bluffs to get access to an optional sidequest that I wanted to be available to them.

Of course, given that they'd already fought Kelson, I needed a new threat at the bluffs.  Therefore, as a means of linking them into the next bit of story, I grabbed an Iron Cicle Spy from the Threats to the Nentir Vale monster manual and placed her in the bluffs.  Unbeknownst to me when I started, it turns out that Kelson was actually in cahoots with the Iron Circle!  What a great segue, right?

Lessons learned

I spent a lot of time planning, write out descriptions, etc, before the game began...and ended up doing almost everything differently.  What began as a simple little sequence of three battles, with a loose story, became much more as we went.  New NPC's emerged out of necessity, and entire links between plot points developed out of thin air.  While there were some issues with execution here and there, on the whole it became a far more interesting experience than the thing that I'd originally planned.  This improvement was a direct result of the players' contributions to the plot, and the reactions required on my end to make it work.

So, for all of my planning, the most useful bits that I came up with in advance were simply who the main bad guys were, and what specifically they'd been up to until the moment the campaign began.  Everything else came down to playing my NPC's as they would behave, given their motivations and what they knew minute by minute.  Fortunately, in a play by post format, I, as the DM, have the time to get my thoughts together so that I can zag when my players zig.  Something like this would be a lot harder to pull off in real time at around a table!

Taric Tannershall, take two: Warpriest of Pelor

This is a revised version of Taric, customized to fit Elwen's version of the DnD Encounters season Beyond the Crystal Cave.  The build is fairly similar, but his background and RP sample is completely revised to fit the campaign.

Character Name: Taric Tannershall
Race: Human
Class: Warpriest of Pelor (could also easily convert him to a paladin (cavalier) if needed, though my preference is the cleric)
Alignment: Lawful Good
Gender: Male

Appearance:
With above-average height and an athletic build, Taric can be an imposing figure. On the battlefield, he radiates the brilliance of his god as he pushes through his foes with sword and shield, clad from head to foot in shining armor. Nevertheless, his facial features are fairly soft, and are punctuated by kind eyes that often set those around him at ease.

Personality:
Strong, compassionate, forthright, and devout, Taric embodies the teachings of Pelor. Yet while many of the Clergy seek to proselytize at every opportunity, Taric has found that he is far more effective in accomplishing the goals of his god--and in so doing, winning new devotees--by instead leading by example. As a result, he has earned a reputation in the poor districts of Sybaran as a caring man who is willing to help those in need while asking little in return. At times, he is probably a bit too willing to help; in the past, he's found himself manipulated by those who would take advantage of his selflessness.


 Background:
The Tannershalls are a minor noble house within Sybaran. The excesses of Taric's great-grandfather unfortunately left the family destitute, with few resources beyond the value of their name. This, however, proved enough to help the family get back on its feet. Starting with virtually nothing other than their name, Taric's parents played the politics of Sybaran with great skill. Other houses found that when they need to gather support within the modest noble court of Sybaran, the Tannershalls are often willing to cast their lot to those who can provide them material wealth in return. And by keeping their ears alert to gossip, along with no small amount of guile, the Tannershalls have managed to foil those families who might seek retribution when double-crossed. From an early age, his older brother and sister, Cedric and Dalia, also demonstrated tremendous political competence, and thus house Tannershall is known as a small but rising power.

Taric was the youngest of the family, born a full 10 years after Dalia. While the rest of his family engaged at court, Taric often spent time on the grounds of the local temple. A half-elf priest there named Garren, an extended relative of the Tannershalls and former adventurer, would watch over the boy. Garren played games with him, told him stories, and even taught Taric basic weaponcraft as he matured.

As Taric came of age, he found the life of his family, marked on all sides by the need for political gain, was a poor match of his sensibilities. Indeed, while he had basic competencies in custom and culture, his parents often treated him as a liability, asking that he do little more than smile and nod at social functions. As a result, at 18 years of age, and with his family's blessing, he joined the Priesthood of Pelor.

There, he found his calling. He proved an excellent student of his chosen god, and almost immediately forged a close connection with Pelor. As he completed his studies, he volunteered to work not with the nobility--as he certainly could have done given his connections--but rather to follow Pelor's charge and work instead with the poor. He became a champion on the streets of Sybaran, working with both citizens and the guard to drive out gangs of ruffians and establish social support systems within the city. While he always tried for a diplomatic solution to hostilities on the street, he also was known to accompany guardsmen when they were forced to clear out a den of criminals. Word quickly spread of the young cleric, shining in battle as if illuminated by the Sun, fighting back with divine radiance against those who would take advantage of the downtrodden.

When Count Varis Sybar put out a call for adventurers to help maintain the peace between Sybaran's neighbors, Taric volunteered the next day. There was, of course, still much to do in the slums of Sybaran, and he was reluctant to put that work on hold. Nevertheless, as he believed that Pelor revealed in a dream, war between Crystalbrook and Sildaine's elves had the potential to do great harm to the region. Indeed, were the fighting to spill over into Sybaran's borders, it was the very poor that he'd worked to protect who would suffer the most.


Role-playing sample: 
The moon was still shining brightly in the sky as Taric rose from his bed, a make-shift cot within an equally make-shift house. He looked up at the night sky through a hole in the roof before setting to work. In a small trunk nearby, he collected several small artifacts: a sun-shaped pendant, which he placed around his neck, a book of scripture, and, perhaps the only item he possessed that belied his family heritage, a mechanical timepiece. Those in hand, donned in robe, stepped outside, and climbed a ladder up to the roof.

Gazing about, he could see and smell the slums around him starting to awaken. A trickle of people made their way through the streets: some leaving for the day, others finally returning home. Looking to the east, he could just make out the first hints of dawn. He sat cross-legged upon the roof, left hand grasped around the holy symbol at his neck, and immersed himself in familiar ritual. As the minutes ticked by, he read softly the creed of his god, though he knew it by heart. "I will alleviate suffering wherever I find it, just as sun of mercy shines upon those in need. I will bring Pelor's light into places of darkness, showing kindness, mercy, and compassion. I will be watchful against evil, just as the Lord of Light casts his gaze to the earth throughout the day."

As he completed his prayers, the sun peaked over the horizon. Following custom, he focused just below the horizon, averting his eyes from the power of his god. As he meditated in the glory of the morning light, he had a vision of a great conflict. Elves warred against man, bow against shield, forest against plains. And caught in the fury, he saw the slums of Sybaran burning.

The vision faded as the sun cleared the horizon, leaving Taric to his thoughts. There was still much work to do in the slums. But the announcement of Count Sybar's call for adventurers hung in his mind, as did the image of his town burning. He knew what he had to do.

Harmony Dawnchorus, Pixie Bard

This character is the first that I've ever submitted who did NOT make the cut into the game.  It's been almost a year since I started playing at RPG Crossing (formerly Dungeons & Dragons Online games), so I guess that I was due!  But it probably isn't my best effort...or, at least, not my most compelling hero.  The application was for a Pixie-only game, and pushed whimsy and charm.  I'm sad not to get in..but at the same time, I'll readily admit that I was going to have a hard time executing this character.  She plays pretty far from my strengths.

Character Name: Harmony Dawnchorus
Class: Bard
Role: Leader
Theme and/or Background (if any): Fey Beast Tamer (for both!)

Appearance/Personality: With flaming red hair, pointy ears, glimmering wings, and a radiant voice, Harmony is the definition of charming. Strangely, she seems more or less oblivious to this, content to linger on the periphery of crowds, and rarely taking center stage. She's not shy, really, just blissfully unaware of her gifts and skills--even incredulous of those who would try to convince her otherwise. When she begins to sing, however, all eyes and ears turn to her.


Background:
Born the daughter of the renowned pixie minstrel, Sagegrass Dawnchorus, Harmony grew up in the shadow of her two older sisters, Melody and Cadence, who were five and seven years to her senior, respectively. Both were heralded as prodigy musicians, and her father had spent most of her life touring pixie communities and performing, leaving Harmony with extended family.

Her aunt Appleblossom lived near the edge of an enchanted pond, where, among the dragonflies, young faerie dragons darted through the sky, chasing after little bugs, small birds, and each another. Disenchanted with formal musical training, she spent the years prior to this adventure playing among the faerie dragons, and eventually befriended one: a beautiful creature with wings that, when the light passed through them, shone like emeralds. Together, they spent much of a season darting among cattails and sneaking up on frogs. Inspired by her companion, she would often sing nonsensical songs as they played.

As the years went on, she spent more and more of her time with Emeraldwing. At the same time, the ties to her family became more distant, as her father and sisters hadn't returned to visit her since leaving on tour a year before. As she came of age, she began to feel a sense of wanderlust. Time spent exploring the pond and nearby environs with her faerie dragon friend had given her a taste for the adventure that might lie in the world beyond, and she had just begun to seriously consider leaving on a journey of exploration when King Sunfire spread word of his impending proclamation.


RP sample:
Flushed from their race across the waterlilies and glistening in the warm sun, Harmony alighted on a large toadstool. Emeraldwing, her faerie dragon companion, landed next to her with a coo. She laughed merrily as she rubbed the dragon's snout. "Some day I'll beat ya, you cheat!" she teased the dragon, who seemed to chuckle, unfurling the crest behind its head before it shook its head in the negative. She sat back, folding her wings down under her back and resting on her elbows as she gazed into the blue skies above. She sighed. It wasn't really a sigh of contentment, as much as she enjoyed their games on the shores of this pond where she'd grown up.

"You know..." she cooed, as she turned to her companion. "There's some kind of big announcement happening tonight. King Sunfire himself will be speaking. Everyone's talking about it, and rumor has it that it's something to do with the Murkendraw." The dragon shorted derisively as she uttered the name of the cursed swamp. "Yeah, I know. But I think we should go! Who knows? It might be exciting to hear what's going on! Maybe they figured out some way to stop that Rotten Ethel!"

The dragon looked nonplussed at the idea. "Oh, come on you old stodgey-stodge! I hear all the cool pixies and dragons will be there..." The dragon snorted again. Harmony responded by singing a frolicking, playful tune. "Pixies and dragons, fur-balls and wagons, drunkards and flagons, to miss would be an...infraction!" Harmony giggled. "Oh, I know it doesn't work! I'm just playin'" The dragon seemed to chuckle a bit, before lowering it's head, almost in a shrug. "So you'll come with me? Oh great! We haven't been to town in AGES!" With that, she pulled grabbed hold of the dragon's front legs, flapping rapidly up and pulling the beast along with her. "Let's go!" she called, letting go of her friend and taking off for town.

Why you want to play this game: I've wanted to experience this adventure ever since I saw it in Dungeon. I really only gave it an overview, and don't remember specifics. I don't think that I know anything that would spoil it for me or for anyone else. I'm pretty good about avoiding metagaming.


Notes on the build:
* I've built her as a "Cunning Bard," and as such there is some off-turn movement stuff that we'd need to talk about during combat. Virtue of Cunning, in particular, is a power that lets me slide an ally 1 square when they are missed by an enemy attack. I think we can coordinate that to keep it from being disruptive--maybe even let you make the decision about where they shift if you feel that you can do that--but it is something that could potentially slow the game down. Similarly, Majestic Word allows me to slide an ally 1 square with a heal. If they are going to have input on where they slide to, it could slow things down...so we might have to all make some decisions in advance to try to coordinate this.

I could potentially go a different route with her build, but I don't see her as a weapon user unless she has to be. But singing songs and shooting some kind of pixie/bard magic with her wand? Yep, that fits.

* She's a fey beast tamer, but I'd like to reflavor the displacer beast as the faerie dragon. It can work exactly the same way as written, mechanically. But my preference would be to make two changes if you're up for it. 1) make it tiny instead of medium sized, and 2) allow it to fly (same height restrictions as pixie flight). But if you're not comfortable with that, I can run it exactly as described in the rules. Maybe the dragon hurts its wing or something so that it can't fly.

Character: Pery Clearlight, Warlock (Hexblade), Dead Rat Deserter

Here's another character app for a game that fizzled before it get started.  I really like this one.  I'd just read Erik Scott de Bie's Shadowbane at the time I wrote this, and used that book to frame his background.  The game was to be set in the Neverwinter 4e campaign setting, and I think would have been a lot of fun.  I may hang onto him and submit him for the next Forgotten Realms game I see that seems to have promise.

And yes, I know, another character who has lost his parents.  But when you're born in Luskan and fall into the Dead Rats, that's almost a given, isn't it?

Name: Pery Clearlight
Gender: Male
Race: Halfling
Class: Warlock (Hexblade: Fey Pact)
Theme: Dead Rat Deserter
Role: Striker

Physical Description and Personality: Small, even by Halfling standards, Pery stands just shy of four feet tall, with a mop of dark brown hair that he keeps tucked under his trademark green checkered cap. Nevertheless, he exudes a combination of delightful charisma and bravado that many find charming. While his language betrays his upbringing on the chaotic streets of Luskan, and his blue eyes tell of an eventful life, he nevertheless manages to portray himself as pleasant and, when circumstances allow, almost happy-go-lucky individual.

Background: Pery was born on the streets of Luskan. He doesn't know much about his parents. He has blurry memories of his mother from early in his childhood--one night, she just didn't come home--and he knows nothing of his father. From an early age, he had to make his own way. Even his last name is his own design--he borrowed it, as he'd "borrowed" many things in his life--from a temple dedicated to Tymora in southeast Luskan.

If one is to survive on the streets of Luskan as a child, one has little better prospects than to fall in with one of the local street gangs. For Pery, that was the Dead Rats. By age 10, he was scrubbing the floors at the Drowned Rat Tavern, and by his late teens he'd graduated to the role of a minor thug within the gang. His days were filled with the usual: extortion, theft, bullying, and so on.

He continued to move up through the ranks, and his prowess with his words and blade eventually caught the eye of Toytere: King Toy, the captain of the Dead Rats. In a ceremony in the dead of night, Toytere infected Pery with lycanthropy, granting him admission into the inner circle of the gang--an honor shared by only 20 others.

Gang life wore on Pery, though. While he enjoyed the mayhem and intrigue that went with the job, the brutal reality of the enterprise was a poor match for his sensibilities. He'd pulled himself up by his bootstraps with no small help from Lady Luck. But his duties to the gang required that he erase the limited opportunities of others.

One night, Pery was ordered to conduct an assassination. It would be his first, and success would undoubtedly raise his stock even further within the gang. Nevertheless, the target was guilty of little more than the loss of a small treasure when he was ambushed while serving as a courier. When Pery arrived at his target's house, the man, his wife, and his children were eating what passed as dinner. Pery just couldn't do it. Instead, he helped the family escape from town in the dead of night. Just as they were about to clear the walls, a group of Dead Rats jumped them. Pery held them off long enough for the family to flee--they were headed north toward Ten Towns--but the halfling was overmatched.

It's hard to explain what happened next. One moment, he was diving back, fleeing from the Dead Rats' enforcer as she spun her horrible axe toward his skull. The next, he was on his back in the snow. It was summertime in Luskan, so he knew that something unexpected had happened. Furthermore, as he sat up, he saw no signs of his former allies; just a cold, vibrant, frost-covered forest.

What happened next? That's something that Pery doesn't talk much about. It is clear that he entered into a pact with a powerful entity of some sort in that forest. And with that pact, he received a new set of powers, including a rapier covered in frost that he can summon into his hand at will, humming and quivering with energy. With those powers, of course, came equally powerful commitments.

After the deal was made, his patron returned him to Faerun, though fortunately a bit further to the south, near Port Llast. From there, he made his way to Neverwinter, joined an adventuring guild, and had begun to carve out a minor niche for himself as someone who could get things done. It was in this capacity that he received the summons from Belias Grigor, requesting his aide in an act of community service.

Character: Taric Lansing, Undead Hunter Warpriest

It's been a while since I posted one of these (or anything else) around here.  But I've put together a few more character applications since the last one I posted, several of which were for games that never went anywhere.  Here's one.  I kind of dig this guy, and would still like to play him at some point.  It seems like no one wants to play clerics in 4e now that there are so many other options for healer-style characters, but I see a lot of possibilities with this guy.  He is modeled a bit after my priest of Tyr that I played in Tiberius's fantastic Maimed God's Saga.

Name: Taric Lansing
Class: Cleric (Warpriest), Sun Domain (Pelor).
Race: Half-Elf
Alignment: Lawful Good
Age: 34

Appearance/Personality:

A half-elf, Taric possesses the prominent, strong brow and dark eyes of his of his noble human father, as well as the striking cheekbones of his elven mother.  In battle, he wears a suit of polished scale armor, and wields a longsword along with a shield embossed with the six-pointed Sun of Pelor.  His enemies would see him as a beacon of terrible light, annihilating enemies with his glowing sword while channeling divine energy aide to his allies.

For all his wrath, Taric is an amicable and engaging companion.  The arrogance that might come with his noble upbringing is tempered heavily by the recognition that he has no official place in what he considers his family.  Taric is a man who takes Pelor's teachings to heart, and is a generous friend to those who need his help.

His crusade against undead, however, has become an obsession in recent years.  While he serves as required by his superiors in the church, he believes that Pelor has commanded him to dedicate his life to purging the scurge of undead from the world.  In truth, he rarely seems satisfied in other pursuits.


Background:

Taric is the son of Edmond Lansing, the human noble lord of Lansing Keep.  The Lansings have a proud and rich tradition, and are known as benevolent, responsible leaders with an impeccable reputation for responsibility.  It was surprising, then, when Taric was introduced, for his mother was not Edmond's wife, Lady Cassandra Lansing.  Rather, she was an elven commoner by the name of Calya Casernia.

While many men might shirk from their duty, Edmond accepted the boy into his family and raised Taric as his third son.  The boy proved up to the task; despite never being completely accepted by his half-brothers and their mother, he took to the Lansing family traditions well.  He displayed tremendous skill in weapon instruction, and from an early age also demonstrated a remarkably close relationship with Pelor.

As he came of age, it became clear that the boy needed a place in the world.  As a bastard child, he was not eligible for a lordship.  Given the boy's relationship with Pelor, Edmond turned to the church, and it was with the clergy that Taric found his home.

Taric proved to be a tremendous asset to the church.  While the disciples of Pelor seek to bring kindness and compassion to those who suffer, they stand tall against evil.  And this is where Taric made his mark.  His combination of martial skill and his close connection with Pelor allowed him to be a powerful weapon against those who opposed the church violently.  Through the years, he has specialized in combating undead, which he views as the antithesis to Pelor's holy light.  When the people of Marin appealed to the church of Pelor for assistance in their time of need, speaking of strange creatures kidnapping victims in the night, Taric seemed a clear choice for the job.

Next up: Trinity

I've seen Tiberius mention that his favorite NWN2 modules, aside from his own, were Harp and Chrysanthemum and Trinity.  Well, tonight I downloaded Trinity.  I have a level 8 warlock who might be a good fit.  Here's the opening movie!

Module Comments: Maimed God's Saga

The scales up there?  That's Tyr.

Link to Module
My Vote: 10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking
Character: lv 6. Male Lawful Good Cleric of Tyr, reached lv 9

I've played a lot of clerics over the years.  My character in my original playthrough of BG1/BG2, as well as my character for NWN2's official campaign were both clerics.  I like to have a strong healer in my parties, I suppose.  The thing is, however, that I've never really felt like a cleric from a roleplaying perspective.  I have no idea which god any of my characters would have worshiped, beyond some generally good deity or another.  I had no connection to the deity save for the fact that I could cast spells.  In truth, I might as well have just been playing an arcane spellcaster who happens to cast healing spells.

The great triumph of this module is that it completely reversed this trend.  In the Maimed God's Saga, you get to roleplay a cleric to a degree that frankly has never been done in a video game before.  As a cleric of Tyr, you not only take on an aspect of your deity's dogma as your character's primary motivation, but you ultimately get the opportunity to interact with him directly.  Regaining spells typically requires one to pray at an altar, rather than simply resting, and these events are used frequently throughout the module to add amazing roleplaying opportunities.  Playing this module completely changed how I view gods in Forgotten Realms-style fantasy, and I'm looking forward to taking these ideas into my play by post games.

The Manor

The story itself begins as a local mystery: a request has come from a tiny, obscure town for help against a long-standing curse that has plagued their ruling family.  That curse, however, is gradually revealed to be part of something far greater that stands to threaten the entirety of the Sword Coast, and upset the balance of power among the gods themselves.  The pacing is very good, with surprising twists and turns throughout that had me deeply invested in both the story and my character's place in it.  This is a roleplaying-intensive module, where even seemingly small decisions can substantially impact the story...and sometimes in very surprising ways.  And the companion...I played with the female (my character was male), and I found her to be among the most interesting, well-realized, and evocative companion characters I've encountered in any game.

As Tiberius explains in the readme, there is frequent combat in the module, but you should expect to have the opportunity to rest and regain your spells in between most of the challenging encounters.  Once you've settled in, he recommends deciding on a course of action, resting, praying to regain spells, and setting off to accomplish that goal.  I generally followed this advice and found combat to be well balanced but challenging throughout the mod.  The key to success in combat, I found, was to use the ranger companion as a tank, freeing my cleric to use his spells.  I did take a nice stack of healing potions with me into the module and was glad to have them, but they were rarely necessary outside of a few big fights.

It's dark here!

If there's a criticism that I had of this module, it's probably that it does too good of a job of depicting its atmosphere.  The majority of the module takes place in a small, isolated town subject to a curse.  The town is virtually dead, and it's rendered in this module as a place that is dark, virtually deserted, and hopeless.  The interiors of occupied buildings are dark, even during the day (it's constantly raining and gloomy), requiring ample use of Light spells or torches (and, for my comfort as a player, gamma correction).  All of this is done, no doubt, to paint a foreboding and dark mood...but at times, I found that it bordered on depressing.  I found that I had to be in a certain mood to play this module in its early goings, and if I was tired (I often am), stressed (again, I often am), etc, it was often more fun to play something else than to load up the Maimed God's Saga.  That's not to say that there aren't exciting moments, or that playing this module was not incredibly gratifying...in truth, perhaps because of what you had to go through, this module left me as satisfied as any that I've ever played.  But there were times when I just didn't want to face that dark, depressing town.

But my goodness, I'm glad I continued to come back to it.  This module is a triumph of module making.  It's story and roleplaying depth are among the best I've ever seen in a module, and it is probably the best class-specific module I've ever played.  Thanks for the fantastic experience.

Bioware Execs Retiring / Baldur's Gate Impressions

Luke Scull aka Alazander has a great post up at his blog discussing the recent announcement that Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk are leaving Bioware with the intention to retire.  He declares it the end of Bioware, at least as we'll remember it, and he's probably right.  Check out his post here.

I wrote this little response, including my recent thoughts on Baldur's Gate as a result of my current play-through:

Nice post! 

With the upcoming release of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition getting my nostalgia going, I started playing through my original copy of the game recently for the first time since the late 90's. Despite the pixelated graphics, horrific journal system, maddening pathfinding, and (in my view) primitive 2e DnD rules, it holds up remarkably well. It's hard to put my finger on why. Most of the quests so far are of the "fetch" or "clear out the basement/dungeon/encampment" variety. But they're all done well, with nice twists that make them memorable. The ogre with a belt fetish was a memorable favorite. And the sheer sense of adventure is still unmatched. There are so few games that allow you to explore an entire region like this, clearing out map after map that often have no other reason to exist aside from adding to the richness of the world (e.g. the Xvart village). 

Bioware really was amazing. Between the Infinity Engine games and Neverwinter Nights, they've given me more hours of fun and entertainment than any other company...and it's really not even close.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition release date announced

Baldur's Gate (1998), a computer role-playing game based on Dungeons & Dragons (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The big to-do right now in D&D RPG land is the return of Baldur's Gate, specifically Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.  BGEE is a project by BeamDog, and directed by Trent Oster of the NWN development team, that is essentially taking the old BG code, cleaning it up, adjusting it so that it can work on modern computers (and iPads...), and re-releasing it on September 18.  It will cost $20, and the pre-orders cost $2 less.

I'm pretty torn about this.  On one hand, I'm excited to see this happen, because Baldur's Gate was one of those games that defined me as an rpg-oriented gamer.  I remember well the hours spent exploring the countryside of the Sword Coast, and the thrill of finding new areas for adventure in the countryside.  I played BG as a D&D novice, so I'm interested to see what would happen if I took the game on now.

On the other hand, I also remember it being a preposterously long game.  I have pretty limited time to play games and am finally getting back into Neverwinter Nights 1/2 after a long time away.  I have TONS of modules to play that use wonderful 3D engines, 3/3.5 rules, and have tight, directed stories that can be completed in 5-20 hours.  I'm not that excited--at least on the surface--about returning to the days of THAC0, sprites, fog of war, etc.  I had something of a love/hate relationship with the Infinity Engine, and I wonder if going back to it would be nostalgic fun...or an exercise in frustration.

On top of all that, I still have my BG1 and BG2 CD's.  I don't know if it would work on this computer, but I could give it a try.  And the NWN2 remake of Baldur's Gate, by drechner and company, is due out at around a similar time to BGEE.  

My hunch is that I will go ahead and grab this.  It would be a fun mobile game to have on the laptop (laptop can't run NWN, and definitely not NWN2) or iPad, and will be great for nostalgia.  But I'll probably wait to see how the release goes.  If Trent Oster's twitter feed is any indication, they are still pushing through bugs and user interface issues.

Review: Harp and Chrysanthemum

Having finally finished Storm of Zehir, and punted on Mask of the Betrayer, I found myself a few nights ago finally ready to return to the wonderful world of NWN2 modules.  It's been five years since I launched a NWN2 mod.  Amazing.  I can't remember who said it, but around the time I was leaving the community, someone mentioned in a comment (I think--couldn't find it) that Harp and Chrysanthemum was a pretty good reason to come back and start playing again.  Whoever said that was right.  I had been following this module pretty closely while it was developed, and have long been a fan of Maerduin's earlier work (e.g. The Birthday)  Here are my comments on Harp:

Area design and use of cutscenes, by themselves,
make this module groundbreaking

My vote: 10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking
Character: Mers Fener, a level 4 Barbarian, previously had adventured in Once Upon A Time..., leveled up in FRWCC.  Advanced to level 6 by the end of the module.

This is a really spectacular module.  It is stunning, evocative, and powerful.  While not perfect, where it excels it is so amazing that it overshadows its few flaws and drawbacks.

Harp and Chrysanthemum features the most spectacularly designed areas I've seen in NWN2.  Far more so than anything you see in the official campaigns, Maerduin makes brilliant use of vertical scale in many of his areas.  The main town in the module, Drawn Swords, is a shining example of this, and is a major feature of the module.  On top of his area design skills, the author creatures powerful--if not chill-inducing--moments with his expert use of cinematic cut scenes that showcase his areas, as well as custom music.  I have never seen better use of the camera than the author achieved in this module; it should be required viewing for any aspiring modder who wants to learn how to do it right.

Don't cross the line, Orc.

The story is fascinating, and is told largely via the interactions of strongly developed NPC's.  You begin the module in the company of a rogue, an old friend, and shortly thereafter are joined by a paladin.  The paladin, in particular, is a wonderful character.  In many ways, she's tragic: seemingly cold and powerful, but, as you soon learn, also vulnerable and insecure.  It's been quite a while since a character came alive before me like she did in this module--perhaps not since playing some of Alazander's old modules.  Moreover, the story is punctuated by dramatic moments that had me saying "oh my god!" to my screen.

This is not to say that the module is perfect.  As many have said in the module's comments page, the combat is quite challenging.  I initially tried to let my barbarian lead the charge, but quickly found that I needed to boost the paladin's armor class as much as possible and let her tank, only allowing the others to join after the enemies had her surrounded.  Challenging combat isn't a bad thing off hand, but it was even necessary to micro-manage to this degree on "random encounter" monsters.  Some of these monsters were on respawn triggers, at times re-spawning shockingly close to the party, which became really annoying.  At one point, I just ran through an area with the paladin, just allowing the other party members to fall to the monsters, because I just wanted to get back to the inn in town and rest.  On top of all this, even decent healing supplies, such as potions of moderate healing, are in limited supply--though you can buy an extremely expensive liquor at the bar that works just as well, if you have the coin.  Often, you don't.

It's not just the outdoor areas that are spectacular.

On top of some combat frustration, I ran into several bugs.  One innocuous one resulted in the town leader materializing in the middle of town without any scripts attached to him.  At one point, another copy of that same leader had a conversation with my characters and walked right past his clone on his way back to his shop.  I also somehow completely missed what was supposed to be an earlier encounter with some elven tomb defenders.  This made a later conversation with them extremely confusing.

But what this module does right it just does so well that I can't let myself get hung up on those problems.  The author's attention to detail, from the area design, to the stories on each custom item, to some of the charming side quests (the dryad was a favorite), to the fact that (if I remember correctly) the author actually recorded several pieces of the custom music himself, is unsurpassed.  Objectively, maybe this module is a 9.  But I experienced such a genuine, emotional connection to the story and its characters that I can't justify anything other than a 10.  It's not perfect, but I can't imagine a way in which this module can't be considered legitimately groundbreaking.

More screenies below the jump

Review: Storm of Zehir

My vote: 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone (based on engine enhancements more than the game itself)
Party: Human Cleric, Half-Orc Fighter, Wood Elf Ranger/Rogue, and Sun Elf Wizard/Arcane Scholar


I've tried to keep the spoilers pretty light throughout this review, in case there is still anyone else out there who hasn't played the game.

Plot hook: as part of a small adventuring party, you set off for Samarach aboard the Vigiliant, a vessel owned by the Samarch merchant, Sa'Sani.  As the ship approaches Samarch, however, it suffers a collosal explosion and runs aground south of Samargol.  After a thrilling battle with the local goblins, Sa'Sani protects you from arrest at the hands of the Samarch guards in exchange for your service.  As you set forth on a variety of missions for her, you become embroiled in a scheme that affects not only Samarach, but the sword coast and even the gods themselves.

Storm of Zehir, the second expansion to Neverwinter Nights 2, started very well.  The initial adventures on Samarch were simple but full of terrific atmosphere.  There were dinosaurs(!), wonderfully developed goblin cultures, hidden black markets, dinosaurs(!), and the glimpses of what could be an exciting plot.  The game is visually stunning, with loads of new placeables and monster models for modders to play with.  Unfortunately, while the first quarter or so of the game were full of adventure, I found that the middle portion fell a bit flat.  As I wrote last month, the sandboxy style of the game can lead to your characters running into encounters that they clearly are not ready for or intended to experience.  While you can say what you will about realism, I ultimately just found it to be frustrating.

Furthermore, many parts of the story seemed poorly executed.  The main plot with Sa'Sani and her company's struggles felt a bit chaotic at times.  Things happen fast.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but without some build-up or foreshadowing, it sometimes seemed forced.  This was even more severe with several of the side quests.  There's a big one involving Port Llast that seemed as though I missed several long, important events to foreshadow what ultimately happened.  It was really disappointing, as it had good potential.


That said, there were some real gems among the sidequests.  My favorite were invariably the ones in which you just went off to explore a mysterious area.  My personal favorite happened early in the game when you were asked to explore the remains of what had been the home of three wizards who lost control of their Djinn.  The story is told via scraps of paper, items, and the occasional warnings of a pixie who still lives in the tower.  It's brilliantly done.

The big innovation of the game was the overland travel map and the accompanying merchant system.  The overland maps were beautiful, and in many ways I really enjoyed the sense of scale and wholeness that they added to the game.  But after the first several hours of gameplay, travel on the map became a chore.  Even while boosting survival skill to maximize the speed of my team, travel on the map was slow and bogged down gameplay.  I also found myself almost always avoiding random encounters, which is easy to do once you have sufficient hide skill...and that made me question why they were even there.  The only times I did have to deal with encounters were when either a) the game (annoyingly) switched back to my cleric party leader after a load screen, or b) I forgot to get back to my ranger after a conversation.  By the end of the game, I was using portals as much as was possible, and avoiding the map at all costs.  There were some quests that I didn't complete largely because I didn't want to trek long enough to complete them.

The merchantile system also didn't do it for me.  I get the concept, but setting up caravan routes all over the sword coast was tiresome and a major gold suck early...and then, by the end of the game, it was generating so much revenue that I could never possibly spend it all.  It had its moments, but I doubt I'll ever want to do something like that again in a nwn2 module.

Combat along the main plot was generally fun and well balanced.  I found the final dungeon, including the final battle, to be particularly fun and engaging.  Other areas were severely unbalanced for my characters at the time they first experienced them, with little to warn me that this was to be so.  As a result, there were an annoying number of times that I had to reload a game after stumbling upon a battle for which I was hopelessly overmatched.

Also...perhaps this is just because of the amount of time I spent in nwn modules, but I think I prefer small parties with a focus on character development.  The SoZ model, with four user-generated characters plus two NPCs, doesn't work as well for me.  It was hard to develop much personality for my four characters, and in many ways they were little more than hired thugs throughout the game.  Plus, there seemed to be far less mechanical detail than was needed in the chat window, which got really annoying.

Overall, I think this is one of those games that tried some neat things, won some small victories, but ultimately fell short of what it might have been.  It did enough right that I think it's definitely worth a try.  I'm glad I played.  But I'm also glad that I finished.  If we're judging it for the sake of the game itself, it's a 7 (Very Good, Deserves a Look).  If we're judging it for all of the extensions and fixes of the engine that the expansion brought, it's a 9 (Outstanding, a Must Have).  I'll vote 8 and leave it at that.

More screenies after the jump...

Character Application: Playtest Wizard

I submitted the following application for a DnDNext playtest game.  I'm not sure if I'm going to get to play him, and that's ok.  Two games is enough for me!  But I thought that I'd share the application here for safekeeping, if nothing else.


Name: Arrelon Illafel
Gender: Male
Race: High Elf
Class: Wizard
Deity: Corellon

Appearance/Personality: 

Unlike most high elves, Arrelon prefers to keep his brown hair cut short; it's less of a hassle that way. This reveals something of his personality: while always one to work hard and an excellent student, Arrelon prefers to go his own way when moved to do so, rather than follow some rigid program. This sometimes gets him into trouble--he has been passed over before for awards and honors due to what his instructors deemed recklessness or lack of responsibility. In truth, however, he's really more of a free spirit than a troublemaker.

Arrelon is of slightly below average height for elves. While of a slender build, he is fond of running as a way to rejuvenate his body and clear his mind in between long bouts of study. And study he does--Arrelon enjoys playing with magic, and often will try variations on established spells just to see what would happen.

To friends, he is generous and kind. He tries his hand at humor with some frequency, though in truth many of his friends would say that he hasn't quite got the knack for it...but they usually humor him with a chuckle anyway.

Background:

Arrelon's parents were both products of a long line of wizards in Sraekin. In fact, his mother, Gilonna, was an illusionist at the Moonsong Academy, a prestigous wizardry school in the capital city of Sraekin. His father, Saelas, on the other hand, was a bit less ambitous. While blessed with some skill in the arcane arts, he bounced from job to job throughout most of Arrelon's childhood. He dove into each new project with gusto, but often would quickly lose interest when challenges were met.

It was natural for Arrelon and his two sisters to join the academy as they came of age. For his part, Arrelon was recognized early on as having a special talent and passion for magic. Unfortunately, within the rigid curriculum of the academy, this did not always bear fruit. Many students were content to learn magic by rote memorization, but he preferred to treat each new spell as a toy with which he could play. Unfortunately, rather than focus on the assignments at hand, Arrelon frequently would get wrapped up in related, but irrelevant, issues. As a result, while he discovered ways to cause his mage hand to appear with anywhere from three to seven fingers, not to mention make obscene gestures, he was two weeks late in learning the competantly deliver a shocking grasp. As much as he tested his instructors' patience--and earned low marks at times--he always eventually caught up with the rest of the class.

His mother had long talked of having her three children join her as instructors at the academy. As his graduation approached, however, Arrelon realized that this was probably not to be his path. For one thing, his grades probably weren't good enough to get such a job, despite his mother's influence on the faculty. Moreover...a life of syllabi, due dates, examinations, and papers just wasn't appealing.

When he saw the duke's announcement requesting adventurers, he was intrigued. It seemed like a great opportunity to experience new things and explore the world! His parents, and especially his mother, were not enthusiastic...but ultimately conceded. With his pack on his back and staff in hand, he closed the door on his house, taking his first steps on the path to his new adventure.

RP Sample:

Arrelon knocked at his mother’s chambers. “Come,” said the voice inside the door. As he entered, she looked up from her desk, where scrolls and parchment were scattered everywhere. Her face turned to a frown. “Arrelon, I understand that you still have not completed your paper on displacer beasts for Master Alcook. It was due yesterday. Graduation is in just two weeks. Can’t you just get this last assignment in so that you can graduate?”

“I just submitted it mother. Spent the whole night working on it,” he said with a penitent smile as he sat down.

His mother signed. “Good, at least that is done. Still, the late submission won’t help your marks, and you’ll need all the help you can get when you apply for the instructor position we talked about.”

“Yes, about that mother. I’m thinking…” he paused. This wouldn’t be easy to break to her. “I’m thinking about an alternative.” She immediately frowned, but he hurried on. “The duke has posted an announcement requesting adventurers to act as first responders against some of the recent disturbances we’ve experienced. I was thinking about tossing my hat into that ring.”

Taken aback, he shook her head. “Absolutely not. That is a job for the foolhardy; you have too much talent to go getting yourself killed by some random goblin. Arrelon, what happened to your plans to join the academy?”

He expected this response. “Mother, you said yourself that I was going to need all the help I can get. Master Alcook can’t stand me, and most of the faculty seem at least annoyed with me. You know I love magic. But I’m just not sure that the academy is for me. This is an opportunity for me to do something with my life. I think I'd learn more as an adventurer than I would teaching cantrips.”

Gilonna sat silent for a moment; her son’s words rang true. She gave him a sad smile. “It has always been a battle for you here, hasn’t it? We’ll have to discuss it with your father this evening…but I don’t see him standing in your way. I don’t like this, Arrelon, and I fear for your safety. But perhaps you’re right. The Duke certainly does seem to need some help, and this might indeed be Correlon’s will for you. I have two conditions, however. One, you will be careful. I’ve seen too many students rush off to be adventurers and never return. You will need more than just your spells and cantrips to survive out there; you need to exercise caution, not bravado. Two, keep in mind that you can always apply for a position with the academy at some other date. In fact, some success in this path might aide your application.”

“Thank you mother. I honestly didn’t know whether you’d agree. I will be careful. As for the academy...we'll see.” After a short embrace, he left her chambers before she could change her mind. I hope I’m not being an idiot, he thought. He set off to his dormitory to pack his things.

Comedy in a PBP game

I had to share this fun little exchange from a play by post game I'm in.  Emmett (played by robotbear) is a rather feral barbarian, who just abruptly exited from a meeting between the adventurer party at the local city Baron.  While the adventurer's continued conversing with the NPC, Emmett went and found himself something to do...

Robotbear: MEANWHILE, in another part of town: Emmett is starring into the eyes of a horse, neither creature giving the other any clue like they are going to blink first (Insight check: 12+6=18). 

Enthusiast (DM): While his erstwhile allies held audience with the Baron, Emmett was staring at a horse, wondering what secrets were housed within the animal's soul. The horse, meanwhile, stared blankly, hoping to lick the barbarian if he inched close enough. He looked nice and salty. 

The creature made a feint (Bluff: 12-1=11) to one side, hoping to draw the barbarian close enough for a lick, but the horse's prowess was no match for Emmett's quick mind. He knew exactly what the beast was up to, and there was no way he was going to fall for its trickery. 

Stubborn as a mule, the horse made every effort to resist the urge to blink (Saving throw against blinking: 6). Alas, it was no use. Emmett, apparently, was even more stubborn than a mule. He savoured the sweet taste of victory.

Shame that the horse didn't make that saving throw...but that's funny stuff, right there.

Storm of Zehir: Finding the Fun

Thing that I like about Storm of Zehir: Dinosaurs!

Part of the reason I haven't done any module reviews over the past few months is that I'm still in the middle of Storm of Zehir.  It's a long module, at least it seems it with my 5-6 hours per week pace, and I went through a period of frustration with it about a month ago.  A full review will follow once I'm done, but I got frustrated once arriving at the Sword Coast.

The reason?  Well, the game really emphasizes exploration.  And that's great.  The problem is that (as is probably appropriate in the world, but is not always fun as a gamer) many of the areas that you can explore are certain death for a player the first time you encounter the areas.  It's not just the random-encounter areas; you also experience this with some of the quests that you receive early on in the game.***

***Incidentally, this is the reason that games like Morrowind scale their encounter areas to match your current level.  A lot of people don't like this for world cohesion purposes, but it prevents the frustration I encountered.

At a certain point, I got fed up with exploration and just decided to stick to the main plot in hopes of getting done. The plot in Zehir is decent, with occasional flourishes of excellence that are broken up by some extremely poorly executed segments.

Once I went this route, I eventually found myself enjoying the game far more.  And now, with the main plot veering back away from the Sword Coast, I'm taking time off to explore.  And it's fun.  My team can handle those areas without trouble now (mostly...my wizard died last night in a battle against some Banites...but it's the good kind of challenge, not the ridiculous kind), and we're racking up small bits of extra experience, treasure, and item crafting recipes.

Next up: crafting! I've finally got enough extra gold and components to make some serious progress with crafting, and I'm looking forward to enhancing my gear.

Character Application: A Warlock (Hexblade)

Name: Armin Brent
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Warlock (Hexblade), Infernal Pact - Striker
Alignment: Neutral
Age: 28 (though the RP sample below happened when he was 16)

Description:

If there’s a typical half-elf appearance, that’s basically Armin: brown hair, cut short, 5’11”, 160 lbs, slightly tapered ears, more slender than a typical human, but bulkier than a typical elf. Upon closer inspection, however, one does notice a few unique characteristics. His eyes, though they appear brown at first, seem to have a subtle, flickering, iridescent red quality to them when he stares intently at you. Second, his posture isn’t what you’d expect for someone with elven blood running through his veins; though a good athlete, he holds himself with a small slouch in his back, as if he were shouldering a great weight.

Personality:

Armin is a friendly, amicable individual prone to good natured humor. Speaking with him for only a few minutes, you might begin to think that you were making a new best friend. He is confident, listens well, and is quick with a compliment. While hardly a storyteller—in fact, he is often quite evasive, if not deceptive, about his past—Armin tactfully involves himself in conversations and seems memorably innocuous.

Some of that, however, is a front. He rarely makes lasting friendships, and in conversation is extremely evasive about his past, his motivations, or his plans for the future. A person might spend an evening thinking she was really getting to know him, only to realize the next morning that she spent the evening talking about herself...and that Armin is now nowhere to be found. Uncommonly, Armin has even been known to vanish with someone’s gold or other treasures, never to return. He is not an evil man. But he seems haunted by something in his past, and seems to be wandering his way through life without goals or purpose.

Background:

What good are choices when all of your options are terrible?

Armin was born in a small farming community on the outskirts of a major city. His mother, Serah, was single, and he didn’t know much about his father. Serah told him that he was a ranger of a sort, and as Armin grew older he surmised that he was the product result in a one-night affair. His mother was dedicated and loving, however, and worked hard to give Armin a place in the world. Among other things, this included a first-rate education. They could barely afford it, but she felt it was the best gift she could grant her child.

As he entered his teenaged years, however, a summertime drought dealt a severe blow to the farming community where he grew up. As farmers’ crops failed, food prices soared at the same time that the community’s income faltered. Refusing to abandon her hopes for her child, Armin’s mother moved them to the city and fell in with an organized crime syndicate. She served as a courier for over a year, transporting ever-increasingly sensitive materials to and from crime bosses. She quickly earned her superiors’ trust, able to conceal important documents and treasures through dangerous roads and military checkpoints alike with a combination of girl-next-door charm and a knack for stealth. It paid well, but she was often away from home, leaving Armin to fend for himself. He spent much of his free time in the library; Armin was a good student, and was considering a career in either wizardry or law. During this time, he met and befriended Belkin, an elderly wizard who had spent most of the last 20 years reading his way through the stacks of arcane volumes in the library’s archives. In those occasional nights when his mother was home, however, the two of them defied the typical relationships between parents and teenagers, remaining very close.

One day, however, his mother was intercepted on one of her missions by a competing syndicate. They beat her brutally. But even worse, they stole from her a vital portfolio of information full of secret details about personnel, safehouses, and current schemes within her syndicate. The price for such failure was certain death for both Armin and his mother at the hands of their assassins. And her superiors would know what had happened within a day’s time.

RP Sample:

The old Wizard stared into his book for a long time after hearing Armin’s request. Slowly, he raised his eyes toward the youth. “Do you understand what it is that you are asking? This is not something that can be undone. You may well be forfeiting your soul.”

“I understand—I do, really. But this is our only chance. You have to help us!” Armin replied desperately. Just last week, Belkin had delighted in telling Armin of how he’d found a loophole in the convoluted laws of the hells that would permit someone to steal immense power from infernal lords. He longed to put his idea to the test. But, as the old man told him, he was too close to the afterlife to be picking fights with devils.

Now, in his despondency, it seemed Armin’s only option. They would try to run, but the Syndicate would surely track them down. They had no chance in a fair fight, much less the ambush that would surely await them on a moonlit road as they fled. He was desperate, and here seemed to be a solution that could save them.

“I am sorry Armin, I want to help you, but I can’t do this for you. You are too young to be making this kind of a decision,” the old Wizard replied.

“What good is a soul if you lose your entire world protecting it? I’m as good as dead without this, and so is my mother.” Armin replied.“Please.”

The old man gave him a long, sad look. “May the Gods forgive me.” He turned, lifted an enormous tome from the shelf at the back of the room, and led the youth down a long flight of stairs into the depths of the library’s cellar.

---

Armin stared at the sword in his hand. It was black upon black, and seemed to absorb all light cast upon it from the flickering torches nearby. Turning it to the side, he saw that it was almost without a third dimension: it was infinitesimally thin, and seemed impossibly sharp.

Tonight had been terrifying. But the ritual, horrible as it was, seemed to have gone as planned. Armin could feel a sinister power coursing through him, and knew that it would take him a long time harness it. In the meantime, however, he hoped it would be enough. He hurried to barn just outside the city, where he had brought his battered mother for safety while he visited with Belkin. Now, with luck, they could have a head start before her employers learned of what had happened.

As he entered the barn, he saw his mother look up in relief. Through the darkness, he could see that one of her eyes was swollen shut. The other paused for a moment when she saw the sword sheathed at his side. “We must go,” she said urgently. But in the next moment, arrows shot through the room, grazing Armin’s shoulder.

The room was a blur in the darkness. Armin unsheathed his sword, which moved as if guided on its own as he struck out at their attackers. Armin felt blood splattering on his clothes as he fought. With each foe he felled, the sword emitted a burst of energy that seemed to feed his strength. They came at him from all sides, but were no match for this blade of annihilation and its wielder. Here, in the thick of combat, Armin felt unstoppable.

Just as he began to think they might survive, however, he heard a sickening thud behind him. Slicing through a last combatant, he turned to see a lone assassin standing over his mother, where she lay covered in blood. In a rage, he screamed—and as he did, bolts of energy shot from his hands. The first shattered the man’s torso, detaching his arm and crushing his chest. But the second shot to the right, striking the support pillar in the center of the barn and causing it to buckle.

In an instant, the barn came crashing down around him. Armin lay for hours beneath the rubble, sobbing. While he had survived, but he knew his mother was dead. And somewhere in the distance—or maybe just in his head?—he could hear a deep voice laughing at his plight.

Play by Post: First Impressions

Play by post gaming is sort of the opposite of this, thank goodness. (Photo credit: mricon)

I first heard about play by post games via the Exemplary DM Podcast.  On the surface, it sounded neat: play within the bounds of your time.  But the description that the guests on that show provided ultimately turned me off: focus on literary style, emphasis on roleplaying and light rules, lack of control of your own character, etc.  I think I'm a bit of a "right of center" gamer, and this just didn't seem like it would be for me.

As I mentioned, though, a few weeks ago I decided to give it a go.  Whoever runs the twitter feed for DnDOG followed me on twitter, so I decided to check them out.  I found an amazingly vibrant community of roleplayers playing all kinds of games, though it's mostly DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder, with the occasional 4e game thrown in for good measure.  I lucked into joining a 4e game with my first application, and have been hooked ever since.

My experience has been rather unlike what was described at Exemplary DM.  There certainly has been plenty of writing, and I'm fortunate to be playing with several fantastic writers (including the DM).  The only time I can remember trying to write dialog since eighth grade was when I was working on my nwn2 character creator module, and I've found it to be both fun and challenging.  Even a few paragraphs have taken me a very long time to write in the early going, but I think I'm getting faster as I find both my voice and that of my character.  I'm playing a fairly quiet character, and that's worked out well, as I don't need to take the lead in conversations...and any awkwardness fits his character pretty well.  :) Nevertheless, we're definitely still playing DnD.  The forums at DnDOG have a nice dice-rolling mechanism that permits you to embed honest dice rolls into your posts for skill checks and, of course combat.  This tool permits players and DMs to run a game that feels very dnd.  Right now, we're meeting the Baron of a small city, and my character has been rolling perception and insight checks left and right, while the talky-talky PCs are rolling diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, etc, as needed to interact with the NPC's.  The DM wisely places substantial modifiers on roll outcomes based on the roleplaying.  Therefore, if you roll a good diplomacy check, but write an insulting, uninspiring dialog you'll likely encounter a penalty...and similarly, if you roll badly but roleplay well, you might well succeed in the check.  And some of the time, you won't even know if you've succeed--you just go with what the DM gives you.  It's very immersive, and yet it's still driven by in almost equal parts by the character sheet and the player behind the character.

We also did a small combat, which I found to work very well.  It plays very closely to how it might on a table, with a few exceptions.  First, while everyone rolls initiative, the monsters all tend to go as a group, as do the PC's.  This allows all of the PC's to post their turn as time permits, without having to wait for whoever is in front of you to finish.  After each turn, our DM updates the grid (which he draws on his computer, in powerpoint I'm guessing?), and gives us reports of the monster conditions and such.  The actual combat is delivered in character, but with lots of out of character references to character actions and statuses.  Again, the forum software is great for because it allows you to hide or otherwise disguise these out of character elements within the game thread to clearly separate them from the roleplay.  It even lets you post secret information that is just between the DM and the player.

There are some downsides combat.  First, it is a bit harder to play a controller under this framework.  For example, one of my Hunter's best abilities is the ability to slide enemy PC's two squares with a damage-dealing, at-will attack.  One use for this might be to move "squishy" spellcaster-types closer to the front lines, and I'll certainly do that.  But another use will be to move foes into a position where they can be easily flanked.  If I'm doing this, I need to be really careful about who has already posted and who has yet to post as I execute the maneuver.  If "my" strikers have already posted that round, that tactical option is more or less often off the table.  But given how much the "everyone goes at once" framework speeds up combat, I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.

The second downside, of course, is that because we're playing within the constraints of eight individuals' schedules, play by post is kind of slow.  Or, rather, it's bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting. As it's summer and I'm not teaching, now is a great time for me to be playing.  Therefore, I've submitted applications for a couple of other games.  As the semester starts up again in the fall, I'll see about reducing my commitments as needed.  Probably, it will just mean that I'm posting a bit less often than I am now.  And that's fine, as most games only ask for 3-5 posts per week.

Over the next few days, I'll post a few of the other characters I've written up for applications.  I don't know who will read them, but they were fun to write. :)