Saturday's DnD Group's Spotlight: "We're Halfway There~" Edition

Hi all,

The Heroes of Maya have had a rough couple of weeks in the Desert.

While assisting Hen-Lord Alan in finding his missing patrols, they stumbled upon clues which shed light on an unlikely alliance between the burly desert barbarians, the fiery minions of Zzen, the ancient Ghosts of Lake Nell and who knows what else. If not curbed, their combined prowess might devastate the nigh-impregnable fortress -- Castle Greyskill and cause total chaos to the unprotected region.

To complicate matters even more, Hen-Lord Alan has also been cursed by a ritual planted in a pelican-beak shard, and has been placed in stasis for the time being to prevent the enemies from knowing the Heroes' next choice of action.

Currently, the four are a couple of hundred feet down in FirstFrost Crypt- the Desert Elves' dwelling and burial grounds for their deceased. Sir Gaspar of Greyskill is trying to secure the trust of these secretive elves, namely the ruling Sai-Ow family, and prevent them from pledging to the alliance, if it is not already too late. The elven crypts have been tainted, and the dead inside are restless again.

Dharva Sai-Ow, the alpha male descendant of the clan, had sent Elva- his own sister (go figure.), down one of the burial chambers to investigate but she has not returned. He is worried that she could be in a spot of trouble and wanted the party to find her, and in return, he would warm up to the idea of forging closer ties with the Castle Greyskill and the surface dwellers.

Guy would certainly hope for that to happen. In a recent skirmish, he managed to tame (or sit on) a reluctant Bi-Zoad (domesticated two-legged single rider mount), and could easily wind up being the first non-Desert Elf to bring one of these swift scouting mounts out from Firstfrost if he gets the blessing of Dharva. Party wise, Trogdor is having fun with a powerful Elven amulet blessed with a strong anti-tainted presence, while Osiris is getting used to his new blade given to him by his Queen, and Astra, well, he's blasting all the grouped-up minions to smithereens.

Will Guy, Astra, Trogdor and Osiris be able to thwart this sinister alliance and their plans? What is Pelor, and the oft-missing Queen up to? And why is it that most heroic-tier quests ask for the party to find a missing "something"?

C'yall on the flip side.

"Newer = even bulkier and clunkier."

Hey all,

I just came across this little tidbit of information. 

The new Nintendo DSi XL is out. A more up to date version of the DS. With an enlarged screen (touted as being 93% bigger than the original DS Lite) and armed with not one but, two built-in cameras; the extra one being able to take pictures of your "business" look while plodding away on the XL. 




But the point is that for all of that to work, this technological monstrosity is bigger, heavier, and clunkier. Nowadays. the general public wants up-size right now. Instant gratification. And they do not care the package it comes in. Just something they can brag to their friends about.

"Mine is an inch wider across and 3/4 inches longer.", a typical DSi XL user is heard exclaiming to a regular DS Lite user.


"Take this! My iPad is larger than your iPhone, and has the same native graphics resolution which makes for really ugly applications that are not optimized for the iPad itself.", a satisfied Mac-Supporter would say.

Latching on to a great idea and expanding on it is vital in any business. Look at what the Japanese did. So, DnD 4E came up with their own version of Size Matters. 


3-D tiles have just arrived. Thick, cardboard and rather flat. Official 3-D combat rules are on the way, adding on to the already lengthy combat encounters. The players and the poor DM are now required to have minor mathematical genius genes as part of their resume in becoming a complete player. 


Drawing an imaginary hyperbola, arc, swing or flight path, and translating it into linear 5 ft blocks is now a necessary skill. I have not even brought in the dreaded LoS (Line of Sight) issues which is again unnecessarily made complicated by this 3D "upgrade" to the game.


My gaming group have experienced some of these situations first hand and I have to say, we are not looking forward to all this hoopla generated by WoTC in their insane quest to fatten their coffers.


Personally, I feel that the DM can just wing it, and decide on the fly if a spell with 5 range can hit someone standing 3 squares up and 2 squares in away from the edge of the elevation. Teleport 5? Heck, I might let them teleport 5 up and a couple in if it matters. And as WoTC has decreed, the players' powers are supposed to be special, even unique in some sense, so a bit of slack should be given; especially when it comes to 3-D movement in a non-3D optimized gaming table.


DnD 4E May Rules/Powers Update
While I am typing this article whole new slew of nerfs gaming balances have been introduced yet again in the 4E May Rules/Powers Update. I have written about this in a previous article, and even though they did write in this edition that they will slow down this knee-jerk process in future, I reckon that the slowing down is not because they have seen the light of what they are doing but more in the line of everything has been roughly balanced out in their eyes.


Did they ever take into account for every power/ruling they balanced well, they utterly nerfed several to virtual unplayability (read: not cool) ? Take Blood Pulse for instance. In its original form, it was ultra-cool and over-strong yes. It had to be balanced. Either the the bonus damage dice must go or the trigger changed to a voluntary movement instead of forced. But in its nerfed version, it can go fly a kite. Maybe wear a skirt even. The bonus damage is now a fixed damage modifier, and take this: only on voluntary movement.


Recent powers are considered overpowered (Intuitive Strike). but the question begs: How long does it take WoTC to know that scaling modifiers (tied to ability scores) tend to cause the problem. Especially if it modifies the chance to hit or to a lesser extent, the damage inflicted. 


Magic Weapon and Righteous Brand are two such powers that come to mind. They were given errata some time back, but the R & D did not learn with the printing of Intuitive Strike in Martial Power 2. Same problem, but they must have been thinking: Ah what the heck, if it is broke, errata it in a month then.
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For my next article, I will be posting an update on Chapter 2, what the Heroes have been up to, and some random thoughts about our sessions. So keep your eyes peeled for it.