"On the rainy week before Christmas, WotC gave to me..." (sings)

Hey all,

Singapore is all dark, rainy and wet these past couple of weeks, and it makes me want to turn emo make an assassin (Ninja!), a monk or something shadowy (warlock?) to embrace the changing season. It helped that WotC released "More Toys for Assassins" earlier on today so I should be able to get working on a shiny new dark 'un in the Character Builder update later tonight.

With Shane thinking of a ranged rogue, Shell rolling an assassin (Ninja!) himself and Vek a cloth-clad avenger, I will try not to accelerate our party's demise with a wrong turn into an ill-advised class. But it never hurts to come up with a few new concepts, and if all else fails, I do have my reliable wizard build or Sunny the SNSD Paladin of Pelor to fall back on.

I grew up on Ninja gamebooks (Way of the Tiger) and AD&D, where the monk and assassin (Ninja!) classes were so flavorful and historically accurate in what they could do. Even now, these classes might not be the strongest or optimal in DPR (damage per round), but the joy of a classic monk brutalizing stuff with his bare fists is...
ki-learly unmatched.


The assassin (Ninja!) class is obviously not a suitable choice for going unarmed fighting, but they can fake it and go without a double handed melee weapon by taking their pick of short-ranged implement powers in the class. With this build, the assassin (Ninja!) can utilize a light shield in his off hand too.
On the other hand, the Monk and the Assassin classes are flexible enough to warrant holding an ordinary double staff (A fullblade/urgosh might favor the Assassin as they do have [w] dice powers, unlike the Monk) for the AC bonus and allow their personal Ki Focus to power both their implement/weapon attacks.

Anyhow, it's way cool that these "Oriental" classes are in 4E, be it that WotC does not want us to see them as Oriental classes and omitted "Ki" as the keywork for its power source just in case it sounded too.. Oriental. Yellow, Oriental, Chi-sh or whatever their PR personnel want to call it, I just know that these classes can only get better.
The Assassin (Ninja!) is a DDi subscriber-only product and will still be supported in future, while the full Monk class will be out next year in PHB3 with even more feats, paths and powers. Not to mention many more Ki foci choices too.

Personally, I cannot wait to get my hands on PHB3 as I am a lifelong Monk fan-boy. The rest of the Psionic classes are just gravy to me. By the way, the Ardent (Psionic Leader) preview came out today as well.

Heals? Power Points? Leader? Heals?

Our current healer-less SoW party scoffs at these keywords.

And why they could not come up with a better name for the class beats me. There is already an Ardent Champion paragon path, the Ardent Strike at-will power and the Ardent paladin class feature etc to further confuse a 4e player. I would even have taken Mantle-ist, over classes like Shock, Missile or an Astral (all connected to common at-will powers).

No worries, it might just be the yuletide holiday mood and the festive resting of the braincells which led to this unfortunate event. I just hope that this is not a benchmark for the future naming of classes to come.

If not, Alex might have a ready-made job for him at WotC. (Maybe a primal class called a "DearDear" or something which excels at maiming fawns, bears and other British wildlife)

*Shudders*



LATEST UPDATE: Vek has left my Ca-en campaign due to work/character constraints and I wish him the best in our alternate SoW adventures. I will be looking for a fourth player and thus, Chapter 2 is indefinitely canned until then.

Winter on Earth, Autumn in Caen, and hell to the person who took my handphone.

Hey all,

Rainy season in Singapore is officially on, wrecking havoc on my regular "Tennis at 5pm/8pm" readied actions.

Talking about relentless natural forces, the folks over at WotC have churned out several new DnD 4e articles, with the latest one rounding out the fighter (again), with new powers given to shield, polearms and spear builds.

Due to their DDi concept of a monthly e-magazine chock full of class/power/item/feat/skill updates, power creep in 4e is inevitable and quicker to rear its ugly head due to the sheer number of new options the game has to be given with each passing month.

Of course, these choices are all purely optional because not everyone has access to a DDI paid subscription, or a DM who agrees to non-corebook content. But if they read the largely accessible DnD 4e forums, the said information is readily available and a few players might feel short-changed at not being able to incorporate the content into their game. Worse still, they might lament that the adventure is not flexible enough to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of 4e.

Take Winged Horde for example, a new Wizard at-will that came out in Class Acts 381 last month. It is basically a vs. Will area burst 1 (expandable to 2) which targets only enemies for 1d6 + Int + modifiers, and stuck on with a situationally cool ability (target cannot make opportunity attacks until the end of the caster's next turn.)

And its nearest competitor and former Wizard area burst staple- Scorched Burst -- a vs. Reflex area burst 1 (expandable to 2) which target unfortunate friends and foes alike for 1d6 + Int +modifiers and has a perennially constant effect of doing nothing else apart from damage. Hooray for "massive" damage vanilla powers.

This is but one of the many powers that have been rendered dead weight due to new content coming out. It is true that the wizard has been improved tremendously since its 4e inception, but when you put in goodies such as Winged Horde, I think certain older powers must be changed to fit other roles.

[For example, why not boost the damage of Scorched Burst from a 1d6 to a 1d8? It can have a slightly higher base damage at the cost of not being able to aim "smart" and having no control element whatsoever. The 1d8 will also do less than other area striker builds while maintaining a role in the wizard at-will powers as being the most "damaging" elemental area burst in their arsenal, thus making it less obsolete.]

Also, WotC has to help out other lesser used classes as well instead of just piling the love onto one or two already established classes.As I was mentioning before, the 4e fighter class has seen many passes made at it, and this article further broadens the already deep and much improved class. Do not get me wrong, I love my fighters and my paladins and what not, but aren't rogues, warlocks and clerics in the game too?

Emphasis must be given to the malnourished, and the players will be happier with broader choices in a wider range of classes.

Anyway, that is just 4e imploding on its own, as I seriously fear it might crumble under its ever-increasing weight.

But on a brighter note, the situation on my side looks fine. My regular playgroup enjoys playing with new content, including embracing all of the November Nerfs (tm) with as little ranting as humanly possible.

We just need to continue to strive to find a balance between encounter grinding and meaningful skill challenges so as to mold the 4e system into a more open-ended RPG. The players will then able to choose actions without fear of complicated rules that takes minutes to complete. (Yes, jumping horizontally and vertically or even both at the same time, I'm looking at you!)

Weekly, inroads to smoothen out our brand of  4e have been made. I have had long discussions with Shane about ambiguous rules and the need to speed up session play. We clarified our group's take on the Blind/LoS rules, "stealth before combat" house-rules and several other minor details on delaying/readying.

Now, time for some Secret Information!

*shrouds the next few paragraphs in shadowy swirls*

I am in the midst of penning a short prelude (lv 5 to 7?) preceding the current timeline in my campaign.

This installment goes back about half a decade in time, when Maya was still a sleepy infant settlement ruled by Hevok the Barbarian. Watch out for a certain Smutt McScurvy- a young pirate eyeing a particular drinking establishment in town. Unique in itself, the party could be sailing the high seas for treasures untold! 

With all that is currently brewing in Southeastern Caen, players will be able to better understand how Maya and her inhabitants first started out, and differentiate first-hand between fact and popular myth. 

Chapter 2 seems likely to start in January or so, so be ready for several primer articles ushering in new mechanics/background information this month.

Until then, stay dry and safe, talk to y'all soon.

"Rats Live on no evil Star." (A conversation piece edited for your taste.)

Hey all,

"Radio killed the Radio Star, Radio killed the Radio Star.." And rats live on no evil star. *garble garble*

The last line might have been pushing it a little, but palindromes have been around for ages, and I for one have been intrigued by them since young. Back to the front, and front to the back, always constant, yet so different at first sight.

Okay, an update on Chapter 2 of my Caen Campaign. Shell recently revealed to me that his current campaign arc will end in about a couple of months, which means that mine will probably start in December thereabouts. For the campaign-related articles that I promised the last time to ease the players into the new chapter, they will appear weekly in the month of November.

In this day and time, Humans residing in Singapore have a lot on their mind, be it pondering on their next life quest or deciding on what item/s (vehicles, entertainment, necessities) to spend their gold pieces dollars on, or just basic responsibilities. DnD is a past time and not a full-time job (nor is it mine), so releasing the campaign-related information a few weeks before the start of Chapter 2 actually makes a lot of sense.
Our attention span can only last so long, and this way, the players would be able to recall and use some of the information, or jot it down somewhere for future references.

Recently, I had a conversation with an old friend of mine. He was mildly interested in joining the DnD sessions and being a Singaporean Gamer, until he realized that he did not want to be: a typical Singaporean Gamer.

The above images depicting typical "Singaporean Gamers" must have gone through his mind. No wonder he was scared. Composing himself, he gave me his initial view of my players and my sessions (without seeing or knowing my players.)

• min/max abilities, 
• not wanting to role-play much but just see the game as a goal-oriented activity (rat-race).
•  requires a great deal of help from the DM for quest-related information that are not obvious in the first place or tied to an ostentatious amount of XP. 

Yes, our DnD players do have some of those traits but to a certain extent, except for a select group who has all of those qualities. I retorted that there are many different players who derive joy from DnD in other ways rather than the traditional "role-play" way. Then he said something that was rather narrow-minded but made some sense.

"I understand that there are different people around. But why play a role-playing game without much role-playing? The environment should encourage non-linear play, interaction between the characters, and the goals should just be markers of your path through life."

He continued, "But this is impossible amongst typical Singaporeans. They worry too much about making the right move, how not to look "foolish" to their other gamer friends so that they can succeed and not be considered a failure. DnD originally allowed one to be a hero, and for one to act as one in his own way.

He laughed cynically (he is compulsive at that), "But for typical Singaporeans, they never were comfortable in doing things their own way. Our society does not promote that. We turn out to be mere unfeeling robots, squeezing the life out of an activity that is supposed to be fun and natural, and trying to win a non-competition."

I kept quiet for a while after his rant. I wanted to tell him that what he said was totally not true of my gaming clique. But I did not want to lie. I have many players who take the game this way. They feel pressured, angry and dejected after a session. Rare are the days when players recall fondly of gathering up to adventure in a faraway world, killing mythical creatures and saving a damsel in distress, instead focusing on whether they got the most out of a situation or what could have been.

But there is hope yet. I told him that I can see that in the right environment and setting, those same gamers will role-play. That plays a big part in making someone come out of their private shell and be someone else.
I mean why bother if there is no difference if one role plays or not,-and I'm not talking about XP or rewards here-, just that would it have made a difference at all?

Also, another thought struck me. If my friend was stuck in an environment where nothing you role play matters, he might just turn out to be the typical Singaporean Gamer that he hates so much.

I too, have a bit of those traits in me as well. But the desire for me to play/win with a certain style is very strong and tends to overwhelm my Singaporean instincts. I purposely roleplay out most actions to minimize the impact of the move just being a cold and calculated, min/maxed Singaporean Gamer move.

This is also one game that I can min/max my character but I do not need to min/max my actions. The min/maxed character simply gives me the option to do so if there was a situation that arose- aka "be ready for anything".

All I am saying that is we might never be amazingly eloquent gamers like some ang-mos or arty-farty dudes are, but the keyword here is "some". Not all of them are eloquent and cool, and I know of a few who are even worse than "Typical Singaporean Gamers".

All we need is to maintain a certain style and the simple joy of going into something without actually coldly calculating every move (unless we are dying of course), then we can go beyond our "Typical Singaporean" roots, and leap into the untapped realm of our imagination.

Singaporean imagination. *grins* An oxymoron no more.

The Positive Evolution of 4 Point Oh. (Recent Musings of FieTheDM)

Hey all,

The DnD website had been redesigned a couple of weeks back and me for one, feel that it is an upgrade over the previous installment. Its magazine front is much more eye-catching, and there is a certain gloss and structure to it that makes you want to read its content.

Just like the 4.0 game itself, the newly integrated website (nicely linked to its forums etc) strives to change itself for the better over time so as to entice people to look, to try and ultimately, hope to engage its core crowd enough for them to click a link or play the game. That I feel, with the exception of the ugly new forums, is a step in the right direction.

4.0 has been going towards the direction of multiple but much shorter adventures (delves they call it, or "3 to 4 encounter" sort of dungeons/quests), which can loosely link themselves to a main storyline or an end-goal. I am heartened to see this change as many potential DMs are intimidated by having to make a really long dungeon romp if they are just starting out and this delve-concept provides chew-sized pieces -easily digestible- for the creative mind.

The new Chaos Scar campaign is one example. It actually returns to old-school role playing roots. The plot structure is more open-ended now, with the description of the region given, and only the start and end-goal stated. How the DM and the players get there (to the end-goal) is entirely up to them.

Simple. Clean.

Hooray for simplicity and allowing decisions to affect the game-world. Wonder why it took them a whole year to realize that DnD featuring the ideas of the players, and allowing them to immerse themselves in the world by being able to contribute/change it will make a happy campaign?

WoTC's action-first "Movie Scripted"-driven plotline is still around, but is no longer the default pace for every single minute of the campaign, but rather encouraged at given points in the adventure.

New DMs reading and wanting to start a campaign in the Chaos Scar region will thus find that free reign had been bestowed on them. Some say that with freer reign comes greater power comes greater responsibility comes a greater chance to do wrong too, but without a clear right or wrong, the new DMs would be more willing to imprint their own ideas and style on the campaign, which was tougher to do in the tightly scripted Scales of War or their previously published adventure material.

For example, Shane had to alter whole parts or delete complete encounters to place some of his own designs in Scales of War, to give the campaign his own feel. I totally agree with that choice, but more often than not, the adventure still feels like Scales of War due to its pacing and inherent railroading of choices, as being participants of an action movie is the campaign's trademark.

If so wanted, Chaos Scar can allow freedom of movement between quests and adventures, to the point that a party (without proper planning or background evaluation) can venture into a dungeon not meant for their "skill" or "level" and get royally crushed by over-leveled creatures.

This leads back to the DM's discretion. How he plans the control of "his" Chaos Scar will alter the mood and the pace of the campaign. I can safely say that if three new DMs run the open-concept campaign next week, their individual sessions will almost be like playing three largely different campaigns, flavored with their own unique journey from Point A to B- which is the party's goal.

It is early days still, but let us all applaud this small step in 4.o, which makes a giant leap in the direction of old-school gaming. Folks, not everything old is obsolete, or everything new -great-.

In fact if you give Old a go, it might actually turn out to be gold.

The newest addition to Gamer-dom and a free passport to Nerdaria.

Hey all,

My brother's (Shane) son Christian is gonna be one tomorrow! Here is a huge shout out from me to our newest Gamer-dom addition.

*issues the boy a passport to Nerdaria*

Christian will soon be able to mumble coherent words, so... watch out world! That simple fact itself will make him a better role-player than Alex ever was.

Umm yes, that one. Alex the 6-year old drama student; he does try his best to act like a retard role-play, but alas.

I hereby dedicate this article to Christian Caden Kwek. May he grow up to learn that pure DPS is not always good and that Uncle Fie adores him.

"Care for a left handed forehand, kiddo?"