Spiders!

So, the elf in the party has a problem with spiders. (I hope it's not a personal arachnophobia which I am insensitively pushing in her face...) So, when she mentioned this I decided that I'd introduce some spiders into the campaign. When the elves arrived I needed an enemy to fight. Now, I wanted to use Drow, Driders, and such as a thematic grouping but they're all pretty high level in the Monster Manual (14th level) and I didn't want to have to make a whole bunch on new stuff.

So, here's what I did. Took the one spider which fits in with the level, Death Jump Spider put him in the first encounter. To go along with him I used some spitting drakes, gave em a climb speed and changed their spit to acid (or it may have been acid, don't remember) and there was encounter one.

At this point Pat can stop reading. :p Or not, just don't spoil it for everyone, kthx bye.

Encounter 2 is Pseudo Dragons and Needlefang Drake Swarms. The Pseudo dragons have a poisonous bite and I'm going to have them hop around the walls instead of flying and the needlefang swarm has a poisonous property too. So, that's inside the lair.

Encounter 3 is the final encounter where in I have made the monsters from scratch. The first is templated after the human mage and had the wizard template added to it. I had to make them from scratch basically since I needed something low level. The Drow Web Sorceress inflicts ongoing acid and/or poison damage and can cast web impeding her enemies movement and/or restraining them. The second is a simple Drow Fighter, two weapons, ranger template added with a spider as his Beast companion. Two Elite monsters and a spider addition, I hope the PCs can handle it.

And just wait until the PC's find out what the Drow have been up to and who they're working with!

Regards,
-Benjamin

Buy one and get four more free!

I've got several bits of news to share today, D&D, WoW, Work, Other x 3.

D: The Friday night group defeated the Young White Dragon waiting for them at the heart of the kobold dungeon 2 weeks ago. Inside it's hoard they found a letter offering alliance against the people of Fellcrest, signed by one Ironjaw. The PCs returned to town for the first time in almost 2 months of real life game play. I'm using the distressed wife hook to send them to the Keep on the Shadowfell in search of Douvan Stahl. The PCs made quick work of the kobold ambush on the King's Road while heading west through the vale. I even added a couple extra kobolds to bump the encounter level to two. Then I realized they were down one character as the wizard was ill today. In any case they did really well, the slight bumps to their AC, atk, and damage made a significant difference in their survivability.

W1: In world of Warcraft my guild has started raiding again. After our raid leader left we took some time off and gave people a chance to gear up and get ready. We went into Naxx 10 and cleared 3 wings without a single wipe. Everyone did an excellent job and for the first time ever our DPS was amazing. Giving everyone that little bit of time to pick up some gear upgrades really shows when I look at the meters. So, now we want to do it again. Due to a conflict of our schedules and our joint venture with Eternity Matters of Naxx 25 we're scheduled to go again on Monday night. Speaking of which we did have to borrow a main tank for naxx, we could have probably done it with just our guild but then we'd be short a DPS and the tank we did grab is very skilled and well geared.

W2: At work I recieved a really nice thank you note from one of our patrons. My co-worker jack and I found a birth record for her grandfather that she'd been looking for for years. Just in time too, they're putting up a statue commerating him and establishing a family ancestry archive. So, having that info is pretty important.

O: My roommate has been running a Hunter: the Reckoning. The game is set in Alaska and I'm playing a media obsessed post-graduate degree seeking college student. He's a reluctant supernatural so he rarely uses his powers and then only passively for small things or when he does use them it's more of an unconcious action. (He uses Hide and Fool's Luck [from the Innocent splat book] most often, when he uses Bluster to counter monstrous actions or Demand to gain super strength that's when I'll change out the reluctant supernatural for a real nature.) My companion in this venture is a Exiled Russian fleeing from the Russian Mob after robbing them blind. We picked up some henchmen with a want ad on the Hunter-Net (hunter only internet). An ax weilding Native American and his gun toting wife, both from Texas.

O2: I've been renting entire seasons of videos from the library again. I've recently watched Deadwood Season 1, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer season 5, The West Wing season 5, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex season 1; also I borrowed Big Bang Theory season 1 and Boston Legal season 1 from my father, which I have watched already.

O3: I'm going to be running the Living Arcanis Mega Adventure Lords of the Pack for some local friends in a multi day event. I'm looking at about 16 hours of Role-Playing goodness.

That's enough info for now. i'm sure it's more than many of you wanted to hear :p

Regards,
-Benjamin

Free Time

It's getting easier and easier to find something to use in my 4e game, but rarely do I want to use something exactly as it's written. I like the mechanics of the thing that is presented but not the flavor so, I make something up to replace that.

For example, there's an Ice hazard in one of the books but I needed something that was slippery and slowed the PCs down, so I used that and said it was slime instead of ice. It worked well and I've done similar things a couple times now. Then just recently I wanted an elite monster but couldn't find one or a template to apply to the shadow like thing I was using. So, I just took 2 monsters that had similar properties and combine them together, use the better of any defense, chose a couple powers added their hitpoints together and poltergeist + shadow of some kind = my new creation the "Dominating Shade".

Right now the PCs are engaged in a long series of social interactions with a neighboring kingdom of elves. I'm using the skill challenge mechanism to award them xp, but they still have to RP their way through a series of social encounters. The best part is making them plan out the social events that they host. That seems to get most of the players involved. Not as well involved as killing something does.

Regards,
-Benjamin

"You don't post enough. Blah, Blah, Blah."

I spent most of the weekend at CodCon up at the College of Dupage in Glenn Ellyn. Played some Living Forgotten Realms and Living Arcanis. Judged a pretty good mod of Living Arcanis too. Everyone had a pretty good time and there was one character who never had to roll a die. (It was a story based mod, no combat. "Storms Over Argent Seas")  My LFR rogue achieved 4th level and that's a significant power gain there, a feat, some stat points, and +1 to almost every thing in combat. No extra powers, but I'm looking forward to grabbing one next level, although I don't know which one yet. 

The friday game next takes place later this week, they should reach the end of the dungeon and finish their quest(s). For some more information about that check out the warlord Annalia's blog. The group has dwindled to 4, which is fine by me. Warlord, Rogue, Wizard, Ranger. Not a bad party. 

At this point in my 4e education I'm thinking that in most fights a defender is the role that you can do without most easliy and a striker is the best role to double up on. Now, in fights with Elite and Solo monsters a defender is a great asset and makes things better but I'd say that I encounter,when playing, or include, when judging, elite monsters in about one combat in 5 and solo in one combat in 10. 

Saturday Night's game was mostly magical tea party. One of my players says "Needz Moar Combat!" to keep the rest of the party interested. Was inevitable that the group broke into a couple smaller groups to accomplish their various tasks and I like the way their thinking about the events in a realistic, for D&D, manner. Something unusual will happen to them next week, for sure, and while it wasn't going to be a combat I'm going to throw together some stats because it could easily be turned into a combat instead of the puzzel/trap/thingy I had planned on. Details left vuage cause one of my players reads this blog now... 

In World of Warcraft there was a new content patch so there's lots of stuff to see and new and all the old tasks still sitting on my to-do list. I just can't get into playing an alt until I have every possible tast on my to-do list with my main done. Also, I'm not able to do as many heroics and raids and dungeons as I'd like due to scheduling problems and lack of guild interest. They've scheduled something for Saturday and I can't be there because of D&D but I can keep picking up PUGs whenever I can. 

Anyways, that's enough for now. Time to celebrate the holiday. Happy 4/20 all. 

Regards,

-Benjamin

4e D&D with a host of newbs

Tonight we start the latest D&D campaign. I'm setting a goal of a minimal amount of effort put into this to start and later rachetting up the time investment when I know where everyone wants to go and what they want to do. 

Tonight's adventure is gonna come right out of the back of the DMG, I'mk using fellcrest and the kobold dungeon. Later I'm gonna introduce Douvan Stall and send the PCs to the Keep on the Shadowfell. I want them to be second level or on the cusp of it when they get there, I definately think that it's a little too tough for raw recruits. 

So, what's in the party? Absolutely No Humans. That's right, they're all metahumans. How about a list?

Annilea the Half-Elf Warlord

a Teifling Warlock

an Eladrin Wizard

a Dragonborn Fighter

a Drow Rogue

an Elven Ranger

As far as a six person party goes I think this is one of the most well rounded and tactically sound groups I've seen in a long time. The Fighter, Rogue, and Warlord are up close melee types with the Warlord providing movement to help the rogue get into flanks and near enough to heal the defender who should take the most damage. From range we have a Ranger, a Warlock, and a Wizzard. 

There's a lot of fire power in this group, I forsee larg monsters going down quick when they need to and if they focus fire they can deal with more dangerous foes in short order. 

We'll see how they take it and get you some more info on the characters, like names, in a day or 2. 

Regards,

-Benjamin