Sword Coast Legends by N-Space Announced

Wizards of the Coast recently announced Sword Coast Legends.  Here's the trailer video:

As someone who loves the Infinity engine games, not to mention NWN1/2, this is really exciting footage.  But I found it a bit hard to ge ta lot of detail about what exactly the game is.  But having read this interview, this part grabbed me:

GamesBeat: So Sword Coast Legends itself is almost like an old-fashioned Forgotten Realms boxed set? You’ll have other material coming out that builds on that set in the future? Is this right? 

Tudge: Yeah, it’s pretty close. We’ve often talked about — we hope that fans love this so much and play this so much that it becomes the Sword Coast saga in a lot of respects. We have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of places we’d like to visit, a lot of people we’d like to meet. I can see this going for as long as people keep playing. 

Stewart: I’d definitely like that. My ambition for this title from the beginning is for a new group of D&D players, when they talk about getting together and playing D&D this weekend and whatever campaign they’re doing, they’re talking about Sword Coast Legends. D&D is just the shorthand. It still has the DM and the player interaction and the crazy fun joking. But really capturing that essence and spirit. That kind of base set and then the modules that add on top of it and shape it, I love that analogy, because that’s what I see this game becoming, just a different version of that.

The interview is a little all over the place, but this is the basic breakdown as I understand it for the game's pitch:

• 1-4 player, isometric, real time tactical combat with pause.
• Modular, single player adventures will be released and available for purchase.
• Some of these adventures may mirror the thematic story that is current with D&D Adventurer's League, like the recent Tyranny of Dragons and the current Elemental Evil storyline.  
• Some future expansions will also include new races and classes.
• A DM mode by which you can stage your own adventures.
• Built upon 5e rules (I think!).  I'm not sure that they're going to show dice rolls and be that rooted in the rules.  But perhaps closer, I hope, that Neverwinter was to 4e rules?

All of that is pretty freaking exciting.  Here's more on the toolset:

GamesBeat: Are these going to be easier to use than the tools from the Neverwinter Nights games?
Tudge: I’m happy to say, absolutely yes. For me, the promise of what Neverwinter Nights offered was really exciting as a fan of D&D and a person who enjoys being a DM. Even before I worked at BioWare, I got in there and started working with those. I was a little disappointed. I come from an art background. I got in there and learned it, but I was a little — I was looking forward to something far more accessible, something that could get me creating adventures much quicker.
Right from the start, we’ve talked and made sure that is the case, that you can get together at 7 on a Friday night with your friends for a session and you can start in the lobby at the same time as the players and be DMing right away. You don’t have to spend a week preparing for the adventure. You certainly don’t have to be writing any complex scripting.
Stewart: Another point, you remember months ago now, you guys came out and we set up stations here at Wizards. We let everybody at Wizards who wanted to come in and play, whether they worked on Magic or Duel Masters or D&D, whether or not they were a DM. People who knew D&D but were not big video game people, definitely not any kind of technical people, jumped on and were DMing and having fun in five minutes. The whole team here was so impressed at how cool it was to be a DM, but also how you could really DM on the fly without having to have all kinds of crazy knowledge from the outside world.
Tudge: It was interesting, because initially, when you volunteer — when you have a group you’re demoing with and you let them play, nobody volunteers to be DM. Almost every time, one of the dev team ends up DMing. There’s this immediate intimidation. DMing has to be really complex, right? It has to be a lot of work. But I don’t even think the first dungeon run is even done before everyone is fighting over who gets to DM.

That's awesome.  Look at how successful the Neverwinter Nights games were!  Their toolsets were incredibly powerful, but there's no question that they required a massive time commitment to produce something suitable for play.  NWN2, in particular, with its terrain editing system, required incredible commitment to produce even a small module, even after one had mastered the toolset and scripting language.  Module authors have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours producing content.  What they can do is amazing, but I definitely think there is a big market for something that is easier to use.

The game, so far, reminds me a lot of a blend between Neverwinter (the MMO), the Neverwinter Nights series, and the Baldur's Gate games.  Neverwinter has the ongoing content releases that mirror current storylines.  It also has the Forge, a simplified toolset that allows users to build adventures for other users.  But it's set in an MMO world, which doesn't appeal to everyone--myself certainly included.  Here, we have a game that takes those good ideas, but converts them into a modern, isometric, single or multiplayer experience.

So, we have TONS of promise.  This is exciting.  It's right up my alley, and exactly the kind of game that I could go gaga over for years.  If they execute and deliver on what they're talking about, I am going to be desperate to give them all of my money.

The question, of course, will be how well the entire package is executed.  I'll be watching this one closely...but I'm old and jaded enough that I will most likely be waiting for the first reviews to come in before I purchase it.

Update: More Links
Article on PCGamesn - Excellent preview that helps flesh out some of the basic principles behind the game, though doesn't get into the plan for the future.

Review: Fire in the Blood by Erin M. Evans

Having survived the Shade's internment camps and come to grips with the missing years in their life, Farideh and Havilar travel to Suzail, capital city of Cormyr.  There, they hope to give Brin time to work out the problem of his engagement to the Princess of Cormyr, Raedra Obarskyr.  At the same time, Farideh must wrestle with the recent discovery that she is a Chosen of Asmodeus, and the terrible power that comes with such an arrangement.  Dahl and Vercaras also are in the city, and hope to investigate the disappearance of one of their Harper operatives in the city.  But hoping for any respite to get one's bearings proves impossible, for Cormyr is at war with the Shade, and life in a country at war is anything but predictable.

Fire in the Blood is my second Erin Evans book.  I began reading with The Adversary, which I thought was excellent.  This book, however, was another step forward.  The challenge in the Adversary was largely one of isolation.  This book, however, puts Fari and Havi at the center of a vast conflicts that erupt not just among political factions within Cormyr, but also between the nations of Cormyr and Netheril.  

All of the major characters undergo a great deal of development in this book.  Havilar must wrestle with the strains that reality place on her now-adult relationship with Brin, who is pulled between duty to his country and his love of Havilar.  Farideh must continue to struggle with her relationship with Lorcan, the half-devil, and the question of whether to pursue it as a romance or write it off as nothing more than the pact.  The character, however, who really surprised me in this book was Dahl.  After returning, unexpectedly, to field operations in the Adversary, Dahl is back in full action in this book--and proves time and again to be exceptionally good at his job.  He continues to be plagued by his fall from paladin-hood with Oghma, but his regrets over his past no longer smother him.  In fact, he often thrives, and may be the most effective character in the book.  We are also treated to a full development of Princess Raedra, who proves to be a nuanced, powerful figure in her own right, with no shortage of humanity.  In many ways, this book is her story, and it's worth every page turn.

As with the Adversary, all of this goodness is rooted firmly to Forgotten Realms lore, both on Toril itself, as well on other planes, including the nine hells.  There are nods to current events in the realms, including the current Tyranny of Dragons storyline.  There are also references to events in other recent Realms books, such as the siege of Marsember in Troy Denning's The Sentinel and the future massing of armies to attack Myth Drannor, as told in Ed Greenwood's The Herald.  I also found neat connections to other Realms stories that I'm reading.  For example, Raedra made mention of Alusair Obarskyr, the Steel Regent, a prominent figure in Cormyr's history.  She also made an appearance in Tiberius's Neverwinter Nights module, Saleron's Gambit, which I was playing as a read this book.  It is these kinds of connections that makes reading and playing in the Forgotten Realms so much fun.

This was the best book I've read all year long, and I've had a lot of fun reading this year.  Highly recommended to everyone.

Link: Current bookclub discussion of Fire in the Blood at Goodreads!

The Sentinel by Troy Denning

In the midst of the invasion of Cormyr by Sembia and the Netherese, Kleef Kenric, a guardsman of intermediate rank in Marsember, finds himself caught in the middle of a conflict involving the gods themselves.  He encounters Arietta Seasilver, a young noble, as well as a pair of surreal characters with mysterious motives: Joelle Emmeline, a chosen of Sune, and Malik, and chosen of Myrkul.  Together, they take part in a grand adventure, ranging across much of Faerun in their efforts to save Toril.

The book begins extremely well.  We are treated to thrilling action at a breakneck pace that feels invigorating and fresh.  We haven't had the opportunity to experience life in a large city thus far in the Sundering series, and this book begins squarely in Marsember during a time of crisis.  The characters present themselves as capable, but still vulnerable, with plenty of room for development.  Furthermore, the plot is full of potential and mystery.  There are great concepts as well, like the idea that one interprets the actions of the gods based on one's own internal belief system.  It's great.

Unfortunately, at least in my view, as the book passed the half-way mark, it seemed to stumble.  The characters, which began so well, became more shallow and less dynamic.  Interesting characters entered and then left abruptly, often without much in the way of resolution.  The plot continued at a break-neck pace, and somehow that became a problem as we went.  The danger level never really declined, but the heroes seemed to have less and less trouble with their challenges as they went.  Sometimes, their actions seemed at odds with the apparent gravity of the situation they faced.  In short, it just didn't work.

I'm not sure what happened here.  Maybe the book was rushed.  Or maybe there was just too much story here to tell in the space that Denning was allotted, and they didn't cull it down sufficiently.  It's a shame, because the book began so well and had so much potential.  In light of how good the first half was, I'm giving it a 3.

The Eye of the Chained God by Don Bassingwaite

The Eye of the Chained God was an enjoyable read, and a satisfying conclusion to the Nentir Vale's trial with the abyssal plague. What began with a small core of characters in book one has broadened to a much larger party by book three. It is probably the case that the focus on some of the individual characters suffered as a result, but by the end of the book it is still the case that most of the major character arcs had reached at least a sort of conclusion.

The main character of the novel continues to be Albanon, the Wizard of Fallcrest, and much of the novel focuses on his continued struggles to retain his sanity following his encounter with the Chained God. I found this entire arc to be well-done. Kri, the fallen Cleric of Io, also returns, and plays a prominent role in the novel. Most of the rest of the returning characters have relatively smaller roles, but I still felt like each one (at least among those that survive!) developed.

The only arc that did not really ring true was that of Rhogar, the paladin of Bahamut. He is forced to go through a challenge to his faith, which began as a compelling narrative. In the end, however, while I don't want to get into spoilers, I found that conclusion of his tale was rather anticlimactic.

Overall, though, this was a fun trilogy to read. They stand on their own apart from the other abyssal plague stories, and are a great way to get to know the Fallcrest/Winterhaven areas of the Nentir Vale for those interested in such things.

More Sundering Movies

For some reason, I didn't see this at the DnD website, but the DnD Youtube Channel has two new videos about the Sundering books.  Not much new, but they're worth the quick watch.

(fwiw, I wonder about when the conference footage was filmed.  It pretty much has to be recent, because it has the most recent artwork for each of the characters plastered on the walls!)


Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go read The Companions. ;)

The Sundering is Upon Us

So says the video at Wizards of the coast!



This coincides with the release of R.A. Salvadore's new novel, The Companions, which is the first of the six Sundering novels.  I'm planning to read these as they are released, and I really look forward to them.

There is also a new facebook "game," which amounts to a character tracker for dnd encounters players working through the Murder in Baldur's Gate adventure.  I'll be DMing that adventure, though given that it will be done via play by post, I expect that we'll reach milestones long after the Encounters people do.  Still, I'm signed in there.  Why not?

I'm pretty excited about this event. Despite the video's rather scripted, we-know-everything-that-will-happen feel, this is going to my first real foray into the Forgotten Realms as a D.M.  By all accounts, it seems as though they've done their best to execute this event with as much forethought and inclusion as possible.  I like that the Sundering Six authors have been heavily involved in decisions, and that they're allowing the outcomes of the two Sundering adventures to shape the future of the realms in apparently meaningful ways.

The Realms are a world that I've experienced primarily in video games thus far, and I'm looking forward to getting to play in that world.

So, down with Bhaal!  I'm looking forward to getting started.

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.

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

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