Payback

I played through the second scenario of the Pathfinder Adventure Card game for the second time last night. My first attempt was with the cleric Kyra, and she ended up losing three times to the master villain before defeating him. This time, I went back to the fighter Valeros and he pounded that wanker into next week. I think I'm going to stick with Val as my permanent solo character for the rest of the campaign.

Thoughts on the Not-Quite-Final Playtest Packet

So I guess this wasn't quite the final packet; they're still going to send us an update for the druid. In any case, this new material includes our first look at the bard class as well as several races making their D&D Next debut. Here are my initial thoughts...

• The barbarian received a badly needed nerfing (no more advantage on Strength-based attacks while raging). Whew! Now my beloved paladin won't totally suck in comparison.
• The bard seems like a mishmosh of 2e, 3e, and 4e bards, but overall I think it works. It seems like a fun class, especially for multi-classing. 
• Speaking multi-classing...it's like in 3e, where you can pick up levels of various other classes. The only stipulation is that you need to meet the ability score prerequisites of the new class you're adding.
• I still like paladins, but they're quickly becoming a complicated class -- spells, oaths, proficiencies, fighting styles, auras! The class is also becoming very spell-heavy; I feel this iteration of the paladin is kind of "cleric-lite" with a few fighter bits thrown in. I'm also disappointed that one of the paladin's most iconic features -- his loyal mount -- is no longer a core part of the class. Apparently, the mount is going to be a spell, but it's not provided in this packet.
• Humans still get the overpowered and boring +1 to all ability scores. I think it's safe to say they've ignored the gaming community's feedback on this one.
• The new races -- dragonborn, tiefling, drow, warforged, and kender (really?!) -- seem pretty solid. However, the drow receives a massive penalty when out in the sunlight (disadvantage on all attack rolls! yikes!), so I may need to establish a house rule to avoid that penalty in the Druid Cycle world, where dark elves often go adventuring on the surface with no ill effects. 
• I love the kender's racial ability to find random non-magical items in their pockets; like the rock gnome's ability to create clockwork devices, it's a great bit of flavor will have genuinely useful applications in the game.

Fourth Time's the Charm

After playing through the first Pathfinder Adventure Card Game scenario four times with four different characters, I decided to try out the second scenario using the cleric Kyra. This scenario involved chasing a mad scientist around town, disarming his poison traps along the way. Kyra was not well suited for disarming traps, but I had enough blessings (cards that provide bonuses to various skill or combat checks) and allies to get rid of the traps quickly. Everything went off the rails, however, when I encountered the poisoner himself. He defeated me in combat three times before I finally brought him down. The poisoner was not an especially dangerous foe -- I was just rolling 1s and 2s on every die. (Now I know how Kevin feels!) The only thing that saved me from certain doom was Kyra's healing power; after each defeat, I spent a turn healing before facing the poisoner again. I may try the scenario a second time using Valeros (the fighter). He lacks Kyra's healing power, but he's off-the-charts great in combat.

Seoni Starts

Amy and I didn't get a chance to continue the adventures of Merisiel and Harsk last night, so I played through the first scenario yet again -- those bandits must be getting sick of me by now -- this time using the sorceress Seoni. This was my first game using a character who is primarily a spellcaster. Previously I had been using characters whose main attacks involved melee or ranged weapons. Those of you who are familiar with 3e D&D or the Pathfinder RPG will recall that the sorcerer class has a smaller number of spells than a wizard but can cast them more frequently. This distinction is maintained in the card game, as well, in that Seoni only had three spells but was able to "recharge" them automatically. Recharging does not, however, allow you to use a card over and over; when you recharge a card, it goes on the bottom of your deck and you may draw it again at some future point in the scenario. With only three spells, and with only one of them a purely offensive spell, I often found myself without a good magical option to play. As such, I had to burn through my hand to use Seoni's special power, which is to discard a card in order to fire off an arcane attack. I still managed to score a relatively easy victory over my bandit foes, but I don't think I'll continue solo adventuring with Seoni. As of now, I think the well-rounded cleric Kyra may be my best option for the single-player game.

Pathfinder Team-Up

Amy joined me last night for a Pathfinder Adventure Card Game scenario. We played through the first chapter of the introductory adventure -- my third go-around with that scenario, each time with a different character. This time I was Harsk, the dwarf ranger, while Amy played the elf thief Merisiel. These characters make for an interesting team because they're at their best when traveling alone. Merisiel gets a combat bonus when she's the only hero at her location, and Harsk (an expert with ranged weapons) can give a combat bonus to an ally, but only if that ally is at a different location from his own. Given their special abilities, we spent most of the scenario split up, exploring separate locations.

Our play styles turned out to be different, as well. I tended to try to close locations as quickly as possible so as to trap the villain in one place, whereas Amy was interested in "farming" the locations for possible boon cards (treasure, allies, weapons, etc.) even when she knew the master villain wasn't present. We had time plenty of time for additional exploration because of a remarkable event that happened on the very first turn. As I was explaining the rules to Amy, I flipped over the first card of the first location, and there was the master villain himself! He escaped, of course, because the game doesn't allow you to win on the first turn, but spotting him so early in the scenario allowed us to narrow down his next hideout. When we finally got around to taking him on, we had both incurred a fair amount of damage -- Harsk and Merisiel both have their strengths, but defense and healing aren't among them. Still, we took out the bandit lord without too much difficulty and now we're ready to move on to the next scenario!

Final Playtest Packet

The final public playtest packet for D&D Next has been released. Click here to visit the download page. I strongly encourage you to read over this material and provide feedback -- it's our last opportunity to help shape the next edition of D&D.

Temple of Elemental Evil

The classic D&D adventure Temple of Elemental Evil is available for free as a PDF download, but only for a limited time! Get it here.

Character Decks

Building a character in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game entails building a small (15 card) deck that represents the character's spells, armor, weapons, allies, and so forth. I've found that building characters decks can be a fun exercise in learning the game and its tactical intricacies. After beating the first scenario with Valeros, I built a deck for the cleric Kyra and I'm running her through the same scenario. So far, she plays a lot like Valeros -- she's been bashing monsters with her mace, so I haven't yet had occasion to use her spells or healing power. I've also built decks for the dwarf ranger Harsk and the elf rogue Merisiel, as these will be the characters that Amy and I use when we try out the game from a multiplayer perspective. I'll let you know how these characters play when we get a chance to give them a test drive.

"Hey, look! A Dungeons & Dragons ride!"

Happy thirtieth birthday to the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon television series. I loved this show as a kid (confession: and as an adult!), and so did one of the writers at GeekDad.

Valeros Victorious!

Sunday night, I played through a Pathfinder Adventure Card Game scenario using the human fighter Valeros. In yesterday's post I described the setup, so this time I'll give you a narrative summary of what happened.

Tasked with defeating a group of bandits, Valeros needed to select a location to investigate. He seemed ill suited for completing (or "closing") the woods, so I decided to begin with the farmhouse. Val immediately encountered a nasty enchantress whose magic inflicted some damage that his armor could not absorb. After that inauspicious beginning, Val hacked his way through several other creatures and picked up a bit of loot along the way. His natural melee combat skill, combined with his trusty longsword, made short work of all his foes. Even the bandit leader's henchman -- the last foe in the deck -- was no match for Val.

Having cleared out the farmhouse (more like a monster hotel!), I then sent Val to the town's waterfront district. His first encounter there, on the very first card I turned over, was the other bandit henchman! That was a stroke of good luck. Val cut him down with ease, and thereby was able to close out this location without the need to explore it further. By closing these two locations, I also ensured that the master villain would be unable to escape to them later in the scenario -- Val had cornered the bandit leader in the woods.

The woods proved to be more difficult. First Val ran into a shadow that he could not defeat because of his lack of a magical weapon. His lowest point came when he failed (badly!) his combat check against a horde of rats. His armor absorbed the damage, but it was still pretty humiliating for this mighty warrior! Moments later, however, Val scored an unlikely success on a Dexterity check (he needed roll an 8 on a 1D8) to avoid a pit trap. The next card revealed the bandit leader himself. This fight wasn't much of a challenge -- Val hit him hard enough to kill him twice over. With the death of the bandit lord, the scenario was over. Val earned another treasure and claimed a resounding victory in his first adventure.

Luck played a big role, however. Had the second bandit henchman not appeared at the beginning of the waterfront location, Val would have had to face numerous other challenges that probably would have depleted his resources. I also found that a couple of serious obstacles for which Val had no applicable skills remained unrevealed at the bottom of the first and third location decks. It wouldn't have been so easy if the cards had come up in a different order.

So how was it, overall? I friggin' loved it. This game rules! I can't wait to try out other characters in solo play, and to rope Amy into joining me for a few multiplayer scenarios. I can't endorse this game highly enough. I hope you'll seriously consider picking up a copy and giving it a try.

Zero Charisma Trailer

I know I promised another Pathfinder update, but I couldn't resist sharing this information about Zero Charisma.

Valeros Ventures Out

Last night I played through my first solo scenario in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Shown below is an image of the prepared cards...

On the top row, on the left-hand side, we have the Blessings deck. This deck functions primarily as the timer. At the beginning of each player's turn, the player flips over a card from this deck. If the deck runs out of cards, the game is over and the players lose. In the middle is the scenario card, which describes the plot of the scenario and the various locations that I'll need to visit. On the right is the token card for my hero, the human fighter Valeros, and the deck containing cards for his weapons, armor, and other goodies. The three locations for this scenario -- the woods, the waterfront, and the farmhouse -- are shown in the bottom row. Each location contains the monsters, traps, treasure, and other cards that might be discovered at that location.

The setup takes a while. For each location, I need to draw a specified number of cards from various decks and combine them into a location deck. Cards are drawn face-down and shuffled together, so although I would know from the location card that a given location must include, say, four monsters, two allies, two blessings, and so forth, I have no idea which monsters, allies, and blessings I'll encounter, or in what order. Each turn, I can explore a location and reveal one or more cards from the location deck. If it's a monster, I need to fight it. (Fortunately, Valeros is very good at fighting!) If it's an item, I can roll to try to acquire it.

Mixed in with all this stuff are cards for the main villain and his henchmen. For my scenario, the plot is to wipe out the bandits who have been plaguing the town. There's a main bandit leader as well as two unnamed bandit henchmen. To insert these foes into the decks, I mix them up and shuffle one into each location deck. I know that each deck will include one of these foes, but until I encounter them, I won't know which foe will be found in which location.

Now it's time for Valeros to venture out in search of the bandits! How did he fare? That will be the subject of my next post!

Getting Started

I've now read through the hundreds of cards in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and I've given the rulebook a once-over, as well. After viewing this excellent video that explains how to play the game, I think I'm ready for my first solo scenario.

Rulebook Download

Folks interesting in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game can download a PDF of the rulebook here. I have yet to try an actual game scenario -- I'm still poring over the hundreds and hundreds of cards.

Mazes and Monsters and Morons

I just spotted this listing on Amazon. I love Tom Hanks (who doesn't?!), but I have nothing but contempt for this movie and the book on which it's based.

Pathfinder Unboxing

It's here! Ready to see the awesomeness of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game? Here's Matthew with the box. It's a big box.

The next photo shows the inside, but before I removed the cards from their wrapping. See all the extra space? The box is designed to hold many future expansions.

This game is unlike traditional collectible card games because the players select hero characters and work cooperatively toward a common goal. In that respect, it's a lot more like a fantasy roleplaying game...but without a gamemaster! (The story unfolds as the players draw cards from various decks, but the extent to which this game can tell a compelling story without a human gamemaster remains to be seen.) The base set includes one full-length adventure ("Burnt Offerings"), the first chapter in a campaign called Rise of the Runelords. Subsequent adventures will be released every two months.

There are no rules for creating a unique character, but the base set includes seven pre-made characters who should be familiar to you if you have the Pathfinder Beginner Box or if you're reading the excellent Pathfinder comic book. Shown below is my favorite Pathfinder hero, Seoni.

As you play through the scenarios in each adventure, your heroes will acquire loot! Here's one of the all-time classic treasures, a healing potion.

Scenarios take place at a variety of typical adventuring locations. I like the Treacherous Cave because it reminds me of an episode of the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon from the '80s. (It was the episode in which Warduke captured Dungeonmaster, but I digress...)

Throughout the scenarios, you're fighting monsters (like the bugbear below), overcoming traps, searching for treasure, etc. They really cover all the bases in simulating a tabletop roleplaying game experience.

At first glance, this game looks like a blast...and it also looks ridiculously complicated. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about it as I start to learn the rules and play through some scenarios. Stay tuned!

No News

No news is good news, unless you like to do blog posts about gaming news. Alas, it's been a slow week. Some good stuff on the horizon, though: my copy of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game finally shipped, and the final public playtest packet for D&D Next should be released in the next week or so. Expect plenty of posts to follow!

Great Minds Think Alike?

As you probably know, 2013 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Druid Cycle campaign world, and my goal for the year was to shake up the status quo. I want this world to feel demonstrably different in the wake of climactic events like the battle against Ekhis and deaths of Sir Roberts and Pyrrhus. Well, just wait till you see how different it's going to feel by the time 2014 rolls around, because we still have one major event -- coming up at the very end of the year -- that will change this world forever.

I've been laying the groundwork for this event all year, and it's interesting to note that the Big Two of superhero comics, DC and Marvel, have similar storylines in their current/recent crossover events. I won't say anything more, but if you've been reading comics lately, you may have a clue about what I have in store for the Druid Cycle heroes by year's end...

Hunters 2

My latest iPad game is Hunters 2, from the makers of Warhammer Quest. I've only played through the introductory mission so far, but based on every review I've seen (such as here and here), I think this game is going to rock!

Pathfinder Review

Click here to see a video review of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Why hasn't Amazon shipped mine yet?!

Atlantis

Those who played in The Other World back in the late '90s -- or anyone who plays in future installments of modern-setting Front Porch campaigns -- will know that our multiverse references Atlantis and its fate, and even fantasy campaigns like The Druid Cycle feature the recurring theme of sunken cities. I'm pleased to report, then, that there's a new BBC series about Atlantis. Please, please don't be cheesy!

Galahad

I wasn't too interested in seeing the new Lone Ranger movie, but Matthew and I picked up one of the Lone Ranger Lego sets over the weekend (and I suspect Santa will be bringing the super-cool train set when Christmas rolls around!). We started building an Old West fort, and that got me thinking about a late-nineteenth-century Western setting for the Front Porch multiverse. The most logical location for the story would be the fictional town of Galahad, which, centuries in the future, would become the home base for the heroes in the post-apocalyptic Cyberwars spin-off, Ragnarok. I could use ancestors of the Ragnarok characters for the sheriff and other denizens of the town, and perhaps forge some links to The Ladder, the only nineteenth-century campaign we're had in a quarter-century of Front Porch action. I doubt if we'll ever get around to using this hypothetical Western setting for an actual campaign, but it may well add some interesting flavor to the growing multiverse.

Pathfinder Pre-Ordered

I just pre-ordered the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Can't wait to dive into it!

Bastion #3

I mentioned earlier this week that I was changing the name of Elysium (the hidden stronghold of human civilization in the futuristic settings of the Front Porch multiverse) due to the recent film that overlaps with this concept. I've decided to change the name from Elysium to Bastion.

That name should sound familiar. A few months ago, I posted about adding a city called Bastion to the Shattered Realm campaign setting. Bastion is also the name of a city in the Druid Cycle setting. As a way of building up our multiverse and establishing links between the various campaign worlds, I'm going to insert a community called Bastion (some variation of the name may be necessary) in each setting. Bastion, then, will be the location where the folks are most closely aligned with the ideologies of the Ternion -- the overarching three-member pantheon of the Front Porch multiverse.

More Top Superhero RPGs

This week Timothy Callahan counts down his top five superhero RPGs on Comic Book Resources. It's a fun trip down memory lane, but he ranks Champions no better than fifth?!? Heresy!

Elysium No More!

Those of you who have played in recent Cyberwars/Ragnarok campaigns or have perused the multiverse-spawning story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" may recall that Elysium is the name of mankind's secret refuge in the bleak, post-apocalyptic future. However, it's also the name of a space station in the new Neill Blomkamp film of the same name. Given the similarities between the two Elysiums (although it's interesting to note that Blomkamp and I are using the concept of Elysium in almost diametrically opposing ways), I've decided to change the name of our Elysium. I'm not going to go back and edit "When Last We Left" or make any abrupt changes to the campaign narratives, but you'll notice a shift away from that name in the coming months. Later this week, I'll discuss the new name for this fabled Front Porch realm.

Grand Master Senchan

Congratulations to Kevin, whose cleric Senchan -- first introduced to the Druid Cycle campaign world way back in 1998 -- was recently elected Grand Master of the Knights of Mithras.

Sundering/Saendering

All this business about the Sundering (see Monday's post) got me thinking that I had heard this term before in the context of D&D. But where? Google was no help. I racked my brain (or is it "wracked"? I digress...) until I realized that I had seen the word Sundering -- or, rather, the similar but curious term Saendering -- in Dungeons & Dragons Tactics, a turn-based game for the PSP that presents an almost slavishly faithful adaptation of the D&D 3.5e rules. If memory serves (as Chairman Kaga would say), the Saendering is a historical event in the setting of Tactics (a world that, to my knowledge, has not been used before or since this one video game) that is significant to the plot that unfolds for the player throughout the game.

4e Monster Balance

The great 4e D&D blog Square Fireballs hadn't been updated in, like, forever, but I checked it today and found one new post (dated June 12, so technically it's not new) on the issue of balancing the various categories of monsters (minion, standard, elite, and solo). If you're at all interested in the underlying logic of 4e encounter design, I highly recommend giving this post a few minutes of your time.

Top Superhero RPGs

The first-ever Front Porch campaign was not fantasy, but a superhero game. Earth Commanders debuted in 1988 and it still holds a special place in my heart, as does Champions, the game system we used for that campaign. I was reminded of Earth Commanders when I read an article on Comic Book Resources that takes a look at the best superhero roleplaying games of all time. (Matt should be pleased to note that Mutants & Masterminds comes in at #6.) Next week the author will count down his top five -- and Champions had better be #1!

The Sundering

The Sundering is an upcoming cross-media Forgotten Realms event with tie-ins that include novels, tabletop game products, and even a video game. After checking out the official website (click here), I found that the most interesting aspect of this event is the news that players of the next D&D Encounters season (Murder in Baldur's Gate) will be able to report their weekly escapades back to Wizards and thereby help determine the future of the Realms.

No More Skills...

...at least, not in the core rules. The largest and arguably the most controversial change in the latest playtest packet is the removal of skills. Backgrounds no longer provide you with a selection of skills; now, as part of your background, you gain two fields of lore (cultural lore, religious lore, etc.), which use Intelligence as the relevant ability score for the check. When you make an Intelligence check that would fall under one of your fields of lore, you gain a whopping +10 to the roll. What happened to all of the non-knowledge skills like spot, listen, perform, and persuade? You can still attempt all of these actions, but they are now firmly rooted in ability checks (Wisdom for spot, Charisma for persuade, etc.) that may receive bonuses from character class features.

Knight Moves

I loved the knight background from the previous iterations of the D&D Next playtest. Any fighter or cleric or paladin that I created was likely to be a knight. However, this background has been removed from the current materials. Now the knight is a sub-class of the fighter, and it seems to be emulating the 4e fighter's defender mechanics (i.e., disincentivizing enemies from attacking the fighter's adjacent allies). Although I prefer the new gladiator build to the knight, I really dig the knight's Level 19 benefit, which is called Coterie of Knights. This benefit allows the character to establish a knightly order (complete with heraldry and a code of conduct!) and provides up to 10 fifth-level knights as henchmen. Very cool!

At Long Last...

...the new D&D Next playtest packet is available! Click here to download it. Unfortunately, it's going to be at least a week before I can really dig into this material and start to analyze the many, many changes.

Red Box (The Good One, Not the 4e One)

Good news! The classic Basic D&D "Red Box" starter set materials are now available for download as PDFs from D&D Classics.

MAMET!

I love RPGs and I love David Mamet...so naturally I enjoyed reading this.

KOTOR KO'd

I finished up the iPad port of Knights of the Old Republic last night. What a fantastic game! I'd put it in my top ten favorite video games of all time.

Kre-O First Look

Head over to EN World and scroll down on the main page until you find some photos of the upcoming D&D Kre-O mini-figs.

Awesomeness Is in the Cards

We're getting closer to the launch of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Check out the latest here.

The Met!

Usually when I think "The Met," I think of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Damn, I love that place! Today, however, "The Met" refers to my mother's 1954 Nash Metropolitan. That car -- along with my two little boys -- is featured today on Timothy's "other" blog, The People's Wheels. Check it out here.

d20 Street Cred

I love the Pathfinder comic book, and I love that the writer adheres to the conventions of fantasy RPGs, but the most recent issue (#8) made it a bit too obvious that we're living in an RPG world. When the heroes run afoul of skeletons, the combat turns into some sort of "d20 System 101," in which the characters start suggesting tried-and-true tactics...

• One hero urges the others not to allow the skeletons to flank them.
• One hero reminds the others to use blunt, not bladed, weapons against the skeletons.
• One hero indicates that their undead foes are immune to magical sleep. 

Then they all protect the cleric until she can use her Turn Undead ability to end the fight.

D&D Kre-O

My world just got rocked.

You know I love D&D, and you probably also know that I love Lego and other building toys. A few months ago I posted about the great line of World of Warcraft Mega Bloks sets. Since then I've been building up quite the fantasy setting, with armies of orcs and elves, plenty of heroes, and a couple of bad-ass dragons. (Thank you, Target clearance aisle!) I've been very happy with the Mega Bloks WoW toys, especially with the Lego Castle series being so expensive and unimaginative these days.

Today, I learned that Hasbro is going to release official D&D building toys as part of their Kre-O line starting in January of 2014. I'm stunned.

More details as I get them...

Fiddling With Feats

In today's Legends & Lore column, Mike Mearls discusses how his team has been tinkering with the role of feats in D&D Next. As you know, the new edition is supposed to have a modular rules system, and feats were proving troublesome to design as an optional component of the game. Their current thinking, as Mearls explains, is to give players periodic opportunities to choose either an ability score increase (+2 bonus to one ability or +1 to two different abilities) or a new special ability. You'd expect power gamers like me to always choose the ability score boost, but the two feats provided as examples are robust enough to merit serious consideration; they're far more powerful than feats in previous editions. I look forward to giving the new feats rules a spin in the next playtest packet...whenever that may arrive...

Jolee and Kilowog Are the Same Guy

I'm enjoying my romp through the Star Wars cosmos in Knights of the Old Republic, and last night I met a cantankerous old Jedi named Jolee Bindo. When he started talking, all I could hear was Kilowog from Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Turns out they're both voiced by the same actor: Kevin Michael Richardson. Check out his Wikipedia page to see his extensive body of work as a voiceover actor. He was also the voice of Sarevok in my beloved Baldur's Gate!

The DM Demands Blood!

You've probably seen this video already, but in case you haven't...

Mystara Livestream

Check out this livestream of four guys playing Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. Maybe by the time I finish Knights of the Old Republic, I'll have a computer that can run this game...

Warlord Games

I just discovered Warlord Games. They've got some cool historical miniatures and terrain. Now they're going to do the minis for a Judge Dredd miniatures game.

Free Santiago Adventure

Visit EN World to download a free Santiago (Pathfinder in space!) adventure.

Dreaming About KotOR

If you've noticed a lack of blog posts over the past few days, it's because I've been spending much of my free time playing the iPad port of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I've been playing it so much, in fact, that I've actually started dreaming about it! Last night I dreamed that I was traipsing around the sewers of Taris with Mission Vao and Zaalbar. I woke up before we had to face the Rancor...

The game has also influenced my plans for the sci-fi component of the Front Porch mulitverse. As you may recall, there was no sci-fi setting in "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes"; the only futuristic part of the narrative was the cyberpunk bit in the Prologue and Epilogue. Knights is helping me translate my ideas for Front Porch sci-fi stories into familiar d20 System mechanics. I'm off to a good start, but it's probably going to be many months before I have a viable sci-fi campaign setting.

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!).

Warhammer Quest Is Here!

Warhammer Quest is here! I'm downloading it to my iPad right now!

Jack Vance

Sci-fi author Jack Vance passed away over the weekend at the age of 96. I've never read any of his work, but the early TSR folks were big Vance fans, and some of his ideas were adapted into the D&D game rules. The notion that wizards and other spell-casters must memorize spells that subsequently disappear from their memories once cast is an idea straight from Vance. He's honored in D&D mythology by the god Vecna, whose name is an anagram of Vance.

Warhammer Quest

Hat tip to Matt for alerting me to the upcoming Warhammer Quest game for iOS devices. Check out this video preview and this review.

OD&D

Confession time: I added this upcoming D&D product to my Amazon wish list. I know it's an extravagance and I know there's no way I'll find anyone willing to play it with me, but...in my defense...the Amazon listing is much cheaper than the price listed on the Wizards site.

Arena of War

There's a new D&D video game -- Arena of War -- coming soon for mobile devices. Check out the details here.

No More Maps

One of the best parts of the Pathfinder comic book has been the removable game map that was included in every issue. Alas, the maps have been discontinued! On the plus side, the book has a new artist and I think he's off to a good start.

Nomenclature

When I design a new game setting, I like it to have a reasonably consistent nomenclature.* I may well be the only one of us who cares about stuff like this, and that's fine, but I'm just not satisfied with a setting that I've created unless I make sure there's internal consistency in how people and places are named. (In fact, probably 90% of the retconning I've done over the years, in The Druid Cycle in particular, has been to "fix" names that didn't quite work.)

Most often my game setting nomenclature takes the form of proper nouns derived from everyday words in other languages. The names in Torchlight, for instance, are entirely from Anglo-Saxon (Old English). The Druid Cycle is a mix of language traditions: Ancient Greek and Latin (Troya Nova), Welsh and Irish (Teyrnas and Annuvin), medieval Italian and German (Southern Principalities), ancient Egyptian (Tadjeser), etc.

The upcoming Shattered Realm revamp will be based on obscure or antiquated English words. Again, because this is a shared world intended for multiple gamemasters, I don't want to burden everyone with a bunch of weird names that they may not want to use. The archaic words I've chosen have a nice fantastical ring to them, but they're generic enough to remain in keeping with my design goals for the campaign setting. I don't want to reveal too much at the moment, but I can say that one of the major NPC heroes is named Caitiff, after one of my all-time favorite English words of yesteryear. Look it up!


* - Dagnabbit! "Nomenclature" is a word with a very specific and idiosyncratic meaning in Front Porch lore, and yet I somehow failed to include it in "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," which is filled with many such tidbits to amuse long-time Porch players. I apologize, especially to Scott, for this egregious omission!

Big Four

As you know, this year marks the twentieth anniversary of The Druid Cycle. Many, many people have played in Druid Cycle campaigns over the years, but no one has logged more time in this world than these four lads...

Jason, Scott, Kevin, and Timothy (shown here in a photo from way back in 1998!) are the "Big Four" players whose imagination and enthusiasm have shaped this game world into what it is today, and for that I am forever grateful (and even more grateful for their friendship). It's fitting that, in this anniversary year, all four of them are playing in the current epic-tier Druid Cycle adventure. It's been a very long time since we got all four of these guys together in the same adventure, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

New D&D Movie!

Big news! Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to make a new Dungeons & Dragons movie!

We're Back!

As you can see, we're back online! After some technical difficulties, the Front Porch blog is now firing on all cylinders. Big thanks to Timothy for getting us up and runing again.

DDO

After my recent dalliance with World of Warcraft, Matt reminded me that Dungeons & Dragons Online is still alive and kicking. He checked it out after a long absence and encouraged me to do the same. Last night I downloaded the files and created a character (a paladin, of course!). I had time for only a few minutes of the introductory solo adventure, but I'm finding it interesting to compare DDO to WoW. At first blush, I think WoW is visually superior and has more intuitive game controls, but DDO provides an authentic 3.5 D&D experience that has a strong appeal to me as a fan of that edition. It's free to play, so I recommend that my fellow D&D fans check it out!

WoW Graphic Novel

I'm already kind of bored with World of Warcraft, but I may check out DC's new WoW graphic novel.

Free Comic Book Day 2013

Free Comic Book Day is coming up this Saturday! Pay a visit to your friendly local comic book store and pick up some free goodies.

Neverwinter

Check it out! The Neverwinter MMO is coming soon, and here's a cool animated clip...

Fundead

I played some more free WoW this weekend and tried out a few other races. I had high hopes for the elves, but I just can't get past their enormous ears and ridiculously elongated eyebrows. (Seriously, those eyebrows are just terrible!) I played a bit with a tauren (minotaur) and a draenei (tiefling), but my favorite race so far is actually the undead. I'm trying out an undead warlock and enjoying the introductory storyline a lot more than I did with my original human paladin.

Bastion

Recently I previewed an idea involving a revamped Shattered Realm campaign setting that could be used as a generic world for Front Porch fantasy campaigns. If you read the Multiverse-introducing tale "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," you know that the besieged town of Palisade has been the focal point for that game world. For a bit of a fresh start, however, I'm going to shift to a new location, a city called Bastion. For the record, I'm aware that Bastion is already the name of a small town in the Druid Cycle world, but I like the name so I'm usin' it anyway!

Bastion was founded by adventurers who wanted to establish a new kind of society, one that rejected the aristocratic systems of the past and allowed the citizens to choose their own leaders. The idea of a proto-democratic government is nothing new in the annals of Front Porch fantasy campaigns (hat tip to Timothy for his efforts in The Druid Cycle beginning in the late '90s), but I'd like to take it a step further by giving all the players a more direct leadership role. I really don't want to turn D&D into a Model UN meeting, but I figured this arrangement would be an interesting change of pace from typical fantasy city-states that are led by kings or other such potentates.

In my next post on Shattered Realm, I'll discuss one of the interesting (for me, anyway!) design considerations for creating a new (or, more accurately, substantially revamped) campaign setting.

Cutter #1

I picked up the first issue of IDW's latest D&D comic, Cutter. It was...okay. The art is a very bright, cartoonish style that was well done but didn't quite work for me. Overall I still much prefer the Pathfinder comic, so I don't think Cutter will find a spot on my pull list. However, this guy and this guy were more enthusiastic about it.

New Campaign Begins Soon

Hey gang -- just a reminder that Strategic by Design plans to resume his play-by-email D&D campaign on May 4. Be sure to contact him soon if you want to play.

Marvel Heroes

Matt alerted me to the current beta session of the upcoming Marvel Heroes MMORPG. Although the basic game will be free, now's the time to check out all the iconic heroes who will be pay-to-play when the game officially releases. Act fast! This beta ends tomorrow (Monday) at 12 PM Pacific.

Really?

Presented without snarky commentary...

Repairing the Shattered Realm

Some of you may know the Shattered Realm only from the recent short story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," but this campaign setting saw a great deal of action back in the late '90s and early '00s, with Jason and me alternating as gamemasters (and Kevin as a key party member throughout). The point of Shattered Realm was to have a generic world in which we could set adventures that did not fit into The Druid Cycle or other campaigns.

In the years since those final Shattered Realm adventures, I've often returned to the idea of a shared campaign world that could be used by any Front Porch player who wanted to start up a D&D campaign but didn't want the hassle of creating a whole new setting. Now, in our twenty-fifth year, perhaps the time is right to return to Shattered Realm and create the framework for something that people might actually use. I have two ideas in mind. One is a top-secret project involving Chuck, our computer programmer extraordinaire. (That statement alone should be enough of a hint for now!) The second is a revamped Shattered Realm campaign setting with a few cool new twists. I'll have a lot more to say about this second idea over the next couple of weeks.

Stormwind and Deathwing

Timothy, I know you're a Lego purist and you have no interest in knock-off bricks, but check out the awesome new World of Warcraft Mega Bloks set that Matthew and I put together last night...

The entrance to the city of Stormwind

A close-up of the statues

The mighty dragon Deathwing

Deathwing vs. the heroes

WoW Starter Edition

Matthew and I have been playing the World of Warcraft Starter Edition for the last several days. We created a warrior whose tale began in a town under siege by a vast horde of werewolves. Our hero defeated countless monsters, worked to unite rival factions within the city, helped rescue and evacuate civilians, and even got to operate a gigantic cannon during a frenzied werewolf assault on the townspeople's last bastion of defense. Along the way, he was bitten by a werewolf and, at the worst possible moment, he transformed into a monster and turned against his fellow townspeople.

Cool story, right? If this were a paper-and-pencil campaign, I'd be counting the minutes between game sessions. Unfortunately, in WoW, the game play doesn't live up to the epic scope of the narrative. For the most part, it follows this sort of pattern: You talk to an NPC leader and receive a quest to kill a certain number of a particular type of monster. You wander around the area, kill the specified monsters, and return to the leader for a small reward. Then you're assigned to kill a different number of a different type of creature, and so on and so forth. If it gets this repetitive after just a few days -- and since I have zero interest in player-vs.-player combat -- I can't see paying for a subscription.

Still, the free version is a very enjoyable game experience and I highly recommend giving it a try. I don't see an expiration date on my Starter Edition account, so I intend to keep playing for a while. I've also created a human paladin, and the setting and story for his initial adventure are completely different from what we experienced with the werewolf warrior. I suspect I'll create a character of each race just to see what all the initial adventures are like. The character classes also play quite differently; there's a steep learning curve, but my friend Kyle, a WoW veteran of many years, has tagged along with both the werewolf and the paladin, and his advice has been very helpful in getting up to speed on how the game works.

Amusing side-note: WoW is full of respawning monsters, so there's never a lack of beasties to slay. However, Matthew had never seen a game in which fresh foes just appeared out of nowhere, so he assumed that they had been there the whole time, but had just been invisible until attacking us and thereby revealing themselves. With no small amount of exasperation, he said: "There sure are a lot of invisible monsters in this world!"

Free Pathfinder Adventure

Want to download a free Pathfinder adventure? Click here for details!

One Chance to WoW Me

Recently, my son Matthew and I discovered some great fantasy-themed building toys in the Mega Bloks World of Warcraft line. One of the sets we picked up included a card offering free play in the World of Warcraft MMORPG. I've never tried WoW -- or any other MMORPG, for that matter -- because I'm not keen on the idea of subscription-based play. However, I may use the freebie this weekend just to see what all the hubbub is about. With 10 million players, it has to be pretty good, right? Do we have any WoW players in the Front Porch ranks?

Dwarven Forge Kickstarter

My friend James just alerted me to this interesting Kickstarter from Dwarven Forge. If you like 3D game tiles, this one's for you. But act fast -- the deadline is the end of this month.

Ymbstocc

Many of you know that prior to my current career in the corporate world, I was a scholar of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language and literature. In all the years I studied Anglo-Saxon, however, not once did I come across the word ymbstocc. It means "a stump containing a swarm of bees." Fellow Porch player Matt discovered this delightful word a couple of years ago while he was searching for possible names for his Torchlight character. Matt mentioned the word to me, and in due course Ymbstocc became a minor NPC in the Torchlight world, but he never really got his moment to shine. Well, today I had reason to create a surly dwarf D&D character, so of course I named him Ymbstocc. What better name for a surly dwarf than a word meaning a stump full of bees?

Murder in Baldur's Gate

Lately, Wizards has been publishing mostly reprints of First, Second, and Third Edition materials. Coming in August is a bit of a rarity: a brand-new D&D adventure, Murder in Baldur's Gate. Check out the Amazon listing for a description. (Note that, as of today, the title in the product summary is different: Storm Over Baldur's Gate.) The product includes a book describing the setting, an adventure book, and a foldout DM screen. I'm a big fan of the Baldur's Gate video game series, so I'll definitely be picking this up. Maybe we could run through the adventure online?

Ironside

Jason recently brought his legendary paladin Sir Roberts back to The Druid Cycle. As part of his return, I wrote a little scene to introduce Sir Roberts to the arrogant dragon-in-human-form named Ironside, a character he had never met. As I started thinking about the history of this villain-turned-hero, I came to the conclusion that I've badly mishandled his characterization.

Ironside first appeared around 2002 in the original "Castellan's Journal" story arc, which took place on the distant and now-destroyed continent of Sarras. Ironside was a stern, power-hungry warlord whose great secret was that he was a dragon masquerading as a human. I portrayed Ironside as a villain, but at least a reasonable villain -- though he opposed the heroes and their allies, he was not especially cruel or malicious, and he operated according to a strict code of honor. (I later used Ironside in much the same capacity during a long-running but non-canonical Druid Cycle campaign with my graduate school friends.) The Sarras-based campaign ended in 2004, and over the next few years I used Ironside as a "guest star" in a few adventures. Then, during the quintessence rifts storyline (2009-2010), Ironside came to First Home (the main continent of the Druid Cycle world) and I upgraded him into a major recurring character.

It was at this point that his characterization started to change. When faced with a common enemy (evil dragons, the cult of the Old Ones, Ekhis, etc.), Ironside and the heroes often worked together. Slowly but surely, Ironside became increasingly associated with the heroes. That part was intentional. What was not intentional was the effect this change had on his personality. The original Ironside of 2002 was a character whom the players took seriously. He was arrogant and dangerous. Now he's arrogant and...well...just kind of a blowhard. In a party full of serious characters (PCs and NPCs alike), he often provides the comic relief.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I'm a little disappointed by this change in personality. I liked the stern Ironside better than the bombastic one. Players, what do you think? Did you notice (or care about) the change?

Tomb of Horrors

The TSR-era adventure Tomb of Horrors returns as part of Wizards' re-release of classic D&D material in the new Dungeons of Dread book. Check out this amusing cartoon map that may or may not get you through the tomb alive!