Knights of the Old Republic

I'm not much of a Star Wars fan (for me it's Doctor Who or nothing!), but Matt recently alerted me to the new iPad port of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, widely regarded as one of the finest computer roleplaying games of all time. I'm only an hour into the game and I can already see why. Developed by the same company that created Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, it features great music, familiar d20 System (i.e., D&D-based) mechanics, and an interesting story set early in the history of the Star Wars universe. At only ten bucks, it's a steal. Still need more convincing? Check out this glowing review.

Sir Roberts and Leonidas

It seems like a lifetime ago, but in my first career as a scholar of medieval literature, I specialized in a fairly obscure topic: depictions of warriors' death scenes in medieval English heroic literature and how authors used those scenes for social or political commentary. (There's still an Amazon listing for the book I wrote on this topic, but holy crap it's expensive!) When I was planning the recent character deaths in the Druid Cycle, I thought back to my research into medieval literary death scenes and included some key themes (a man's undying reputation, the need for words to be supported by deeds, etc.) in the narrative of the Ekhis battle. Perhaps the greatest influence on this battle, however, was the film 300, which I watched again a couple of weeks ago to get psyched up for Snyder's Man of Steel. Although the deaths unfold very differently, I had the Spartan king Leonidas in the back of my mind when I was writing the final moments of Sir Roberts.

Problems for Baldur's Gate

The totally awesome Baldur's Gate revamp is no longer available for sale, and work has stopped on a similar edition for Baldur's Gate 2. It seems there are some pesky legal issues to be resolved, as reported here and elsewhere.

End of an Era

In most cases I prefer to let the dice fall where they may, which on occasion leads to unexpected character deaths, like that of the beloved Brewmaster General. In very rare cases, I plan a character's death as an integral part of the story, the best example of which is the demise of Priam Romlin. This time, as part of the massive epic-tier adventure to celebrate our twentieth year of Druid Cycle action, I wanted to kill off a couple of characters, but I didn't have a clear idea as to which ones it would be. 

I contacted Jason and Timothy (separately) about their elite heroes, Sir Roberts and Cathbad, respectively, and asked them how they felt about sacrificing those characters for the sake of the story (and for other benefits that I would provide to their surviving characters). Both agreed to my plan. I also had two NPCs in mind, Pyrrhus and Ariel, whom I felt were expendable. So out of that pool of four heroes, I felt pretty confident that I could get two of them killed against a foe as powerful as Ekhis. Players may have noticed that I was extremely aggressive in the choices that Pyrrhus and Ariel made during the battle, and it wasn't by accident. 

Pyrrhus went down in a blaze of glory, and as the battle wore on, it became clear to me that Sir Roberts was the best choice for the player character death. He had taken the brunt of Ekhis's attacks and had dished out more damage than any other single hero. He'd earned an epic death scene. Jason was still interested in pursuing this storyline, and we agreed that the final fate of Sir Roberts should be somewhat ambiguous. In the end, the mighty paladin was trapped inside Ekhis's mouth and turned to stone along with the monster. Can the spell be reversed? Can he be rescued or resurrected at some point in the future? Only time will tell.

For the record, here's a photo of the battlefield from the final round of combat...

Odds & Ends

A few random thoughts on the "How to Play" document from the latest D&D Next playtest packet:

• Critical hits have been nerfed big-time. Now, when you score a critical hit, you roll one additional damage die. So if you're wielding a weapon that inflicts 1D8 damage, you'd roll a second D8 for your crit roll. If your damage roll was a D8 as well as a D6, you could choose the larger damage die for the crit die.
• Negative hit points have been removed from the game, and I heartily approve. Now the 4e concept of the death saving throw will serve as the mechanic for determining the fate of characters who are reduced to zero hit points.
• They've once again changed the knowledge categories for "Recall Lore." Hobbyist lore? Seriously? The various knowledge skills have really been all over the map from packet to packet.

What the Heck Is Thaumaturgy?

Well, in D&D Next, it's a new level 0 (cantrip) spell for clerics. Similar to the wizard cantrip Prestidigitation, this spell allows the caster to perform a minor religious wonder. I think it's a welcome addition to the cleric's repertoire because it allows characters to show off their divine power (often to impress local yokels) without having to burn a precious spell slot. Among the many possible effects of Thaumaturgy are causing the ground to shake, causing a door to slam shut, or causing the caster's eyes to turn solid black.

Free RPG Day > Free Comic Book Day

My favorite comic book site has a really interesting article about why Free RPG Day is better than Free Comic Book Day. Check it out here.

Dragonspear Preview

Check it out...click here for a preview of an adventure that most of us will never see. Thanks for the tease, Wizards. Are there any other products I can't buy that you'd like to show off? Yes, I've dialed the snark up to 11, but it kind of bugs me that the first D&D Next product is available only for those who are attending Gen Con.

A Free RPG Day Without D&D...

Wizards opted to hold a D&D Game Day event instead of participating in Free RPG Day. Lame! Without a D&D or Warhammer/Warhammer 40k option, it was kind of a lackluster Free RPG Day this year. Paizo stole the show with "We Be Goblins Too," the sequel to a prior freebie Pathfinder adventure from 2011. The only other standout module that I picked up was Catalyst's Battletech/Shadowrun combo book. I also scored one of the fancy dice from Q Workshop.

Free RPG Day Is Tomorrow!

Don't forget to drop by your local game store tomorrow for some free stuff! The Free RPG Day website includes a store locator to help you find the store nearest you. I'll be at A-1 Comics in Sacramento.

Short Rest Is No Longer Short

In 4e, when your party takes a short rest to recover encounter powers and spend healing surges, the duration of the rest is five minutes. I always thought that was kind of strange -- it only takes five minutes to recover from a battle? I'm pleased to report that in the current iteration of D&D Next, the short rest requires a full hour. This rule should have lots of interesting implications for resting in dungeons and other potentially hostile locations. As with long (eight hour) rests, parties will now need to be more vigilant (finding a hiding spot, setting watches, or whatever) during these rest periods to ensure that their rest is not interrupted.

Hinder

There's an interesting new combat option in D&D Next. It's called Hinder, and it allows a character to distract, obstruct, or otherwise hinder another creature within five feet. To use this action (in 4e terms, this is a standard action that you would use in place of your attack), you describe the manner in which you intend to hinder the target (I foresee a lot of haggling with DMs here -- I think the description in the rules needs to be tightened up considerably), and then the target has disadvantage on the next relevant ability check or attack roll it makes before your next turn.

Curtains for Pyrrhus

Last night we had the first of the highly anticipated Druid Cycle hero deaths, and the doomed man was Pyrrhus, the greatest rogue in all the world. Pyrrhus, an NPC, had been a Druid Cycle mainstay since he was introduced alongside Ixion (Jason) and Hachulors (Scott) in 1994. Few characters were as fun for me to play at the table. With his annoying nasal voice and outrageously over-the-top New York City accent, Pyrrhus was as memorable for his words as for his deeds. He always seemed to be operating in a moral gray area, but there was no mistaking his allegiance at the end, when he died in battle against Ekhis.

The next major death is coming up very soon, and this time, my friends, it's going to be a player character...

Free RPG Day 2013

This Saturday is Free RPG Day. Check out the website for details on this year's offerings.

Tinker

As I mentioned the other day, the latest D&D Next playtest packet includes three new races: the half-elf, the half-orc, and the gnome. The first two are kind of bland, but the gnome is chock-full-o'-fun. (Too bad gnomes don't exist in the Druid Cycle world!) I especially like the rock gnome, who gets the super-cool Tinker ability. This feature allows the gnome to craft tiny clockwork machines, such as a marching toy soldier, a fire-starting device, or a music box. These devices are functionally similar to wizard cantrips, but with a uniquely gnomish flavor. I'm already dreaming up a gnome artificer (it may be a long while, of course, before we see this class in Next!) whose backpack is bursting with all sorts of gadgetry. My only reservation about the gnome is that neither variety (rock or forest) grants a Charisma bonus, so a gnome bard (historically a common class for this race) is sub-optimal right from the get-go.

Warhammer Quest

I'm still having tons of fun with the Warhammer Quest iPad game. I'd love to see Games Workshop re-release the mid-'90s board game on which it's based. That board game was the successor to HeroQuest, which I spent many happy hours playing in Scott's basement back in the early '90s.

D&D Next Update

There's an updated D&D Next playtest packet available with some new content, including the half-elf, half-orc, and gnome races, and some tweaks to the rules and spells. Click here to visit the playtest page.

Dead Heroes

The epic-tier Druid Cycle heroes are nearing the conclusion of their adventure on the Elemental Plane as they struggle to defeat their immortal foe Ekhis. So far it's been an evenly matched fight, but the heroes have lost a few lower-level NPC allies. Even the most powerful characters are weakening with each passing round, but Ekhis is bloodied and his henchmen are nearing death. I'll post a picture of the corpse-littered battlefield -- that is, the game map with lots of overturned miniatures -- after it's all over.

Of course, as I've hinted for months, we're going to witness the deaths of not one, but two all-time-great Druid Cycle characters in 2013, our twentieth year of play. I can now confirm that at least one of those deaths will take place during this battle. For a brief moment, it appeared that the doomed hero was Ironside, who was literally chewed up and spit out by Ekhis, but another hero quickly resurrected him. Ironside is down for the rest of the fight, but he's not the hero who will perish.

Players...anyone want to wager a guess as to who it will be?

Neverwinter Review

One of the guys at EN World has written a thorough review of Neverwinter Online, and he's not a big fan of this new free-to-play D&D MMORPG. Check out the review here.

World Building

One of the great things to come out of our twenty-fifth anniversary has been a new look at old characters. Recently, Timothy returned to a long-dormant Druid Cycle hero named Scyld (Hwaet! Take notice, Beowulf fans!), who is soon to set out on a lengthy expedition to uncharted waters. His quest is to rescue the  refugees of a natural disaster that occurred a couple of years ago in the Druid Cycle world, but it's mainly an excuse for me to expand the map of this campaign setting. Scyld and his companions are going to visit a number of heretofore unexplored islands, but their ultimate destination will be an entirely new continent. The travelers will establish a settlement there and try to build a stable, long-term community. Lofty ambitions indeed for a character who was sitting on the shelf, so to speak, just a couple of months ago. I encourage the rest of the Front Porch crew to look back on your old characters and see what new life we can breathe into them!

Questing

I spent a good chunk of the weekend playing Warhammer Quest on my iPad. I'm really digging it. It reminds me of the Dungeons & Dragons Tactics game for the PSP (which I also loved), but with its high level of randomness in the dungeons, foes, and weird side-encounters (while visiting a town to sell our loot, one of my characters got run over by a wagon!), it also reminds me of the D&D-based Castle Ravenloft board game. Now they just need to make a Warhammer 40,000 version, in which the player controls a small squad of Ultramarines taking on the forces of Chaos (or vice versa -- I know Matt would prefer it that way!).