<click>
Paladin – What was that?
Rogue – Sounds like you stepped on a pressure plate.
Paladin – I thought you were keeping an eye out for traps?
Rogue – So I missed one.
Paladin – Is that supposed to make me feel more comfortable about the situation?
Rogue – Honestly, how did you get this far in life? Hold still, let me look… I said hold still, stop with the squirming.
<clank … clank … clank>
Paladin / Rogue – What was that?
Cleric – I have a bad feeling about this.
This week we began D&D Encounters season 4, March of the Phantom Brigade. At my FLGS we saw a swelling in our overall number as we had enough players to run two full tables of six this week. The last time we had enough players to run two tables was during chapter one of D&D Encounters Dar Sun. I think the idea of a 20-week commitment for season three scared a lot of players away. In any case we began this week with a full house.
My table had four brand new players, none of whom had ever played 4e D&D before. We ended up using five of the six pre-generated characters. The party consisted of Belgos the Drow Ranger, Brandis the Human Cavalier, Fargrim the Dwarf Slayer, Jarren the Human Wizard, Valenae the Eladrin Cleric and a Battlemind. As it turned out this was a perfect balance.
Orcus. Demogorgon. Lolth. All three are extremely powerful foes. They graces the covers of Monster Manual 1, 2 and 3 respectively. These are the elite, showcase monsters of 4e D&D. They are among the toughest that 4e D&D has to offer. Few other creatures are as powerful or dangerous as these three. Defeating any one of them demonstrates that your party truly is the best ever.
And don’t forget about dragons. They too deserve inclusion on any list of the most powerful creatures in D&D. A level 30+ dragon is certainly a suitable foe for the climax of any epic tier adventure.
And then there is the Tarrasque. As I was browsing through the Monster Manual (as I’m wanton to do from time to time) I stumbled across the entry for the Tarrasque completely by accident. As soon as I saw it, I read over its stat block and I realized that Tarrasque has been overshadowed in 4e D&D by the monsters I described above. The creature once agreeably the most powerful monster in any Monster Manual is suddenly a forgotten footnote.
Role-playing has featured prominently in several 4e blogs over the past few weeks. The topics and approaches to the subject have varied widely, from how to speed up combat to allow for more time to role-play to introducing new mechanics to encourage role-playing. Our own post on the 4th action is one of the later articles. The subject of role-playing in 4e has been of great debate since its release with many debating how much role-playing the edition allows.
Some have argued that skill challenges are the mechanic in 4e that facilitates role-playing. While skill challenges can certainly accomplish this task, to state that they are the only way to role-play in 4e is rather naive. I strongly believe that if your gaming group wants to role-play it will. I also believe that some players are more willing to embrace role-playing than others.
In the 1993 director Harold Ramis brought us the Bill Murray comedy classic Groundhog Day. For those unfamiliar with this movie, Bill Murray’s character awakens every morning to discover that he’s reliving the same day, February 2, over and over again. After watching the movie again last week I started thinking about how to use the Groundhog Day effect in an upcoming D&D adventure.
I saw this playing out in two possible ways.
Both scenarios allow the players to learn from their previous mistakes. How often have you used a daily power in the first encounter and then realized that it would have been more effective against the creatures in the second? How often have you held onto a daily power and then regretted not using it? The same thing goes for actions points.
The Groundhog Day effect, in essence, gives the PCs a do over. Once they realize that they’re facing the same encounter again they can choose to alter their original course of action.
Now that D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands is finished its time to look back on this season and provide some honest feedback.
When I first heard that season 3 was going to be called Keep on the Borderlands I was immediately excited. The classic adventure of the same name is one of my all time favourite D&D modules. Borrowing the familiar name was a good way to get some old-school gamers excited about D&D Encounters.
This was it, the final culmination of everything we’d worked for over the past 19 weeks. The heroes helped defend the keep over the past three weeks while Benwick and his allies, the black dragon and the lizardman army, attempted to take control. This week the heroes had their final showdown with Benwick. There were only two possible outcomes: The death of Benwick or the death of the PCs. Let the showdown begin.
Knowing this was the final week of D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands we had a great turnout. We had a party of eight including Berrian, Eldeth, Hagen, Quinn, Sola, a Cavalier, a Rogue and a Runepriest. The extra party members meant the DM had to balance the encounter by adding more monsters. Add to the mix three soldier minions, the priestess Chendera and a friendly bailiff named Kendon and the battle was a very busy and crowded scene.
Combat in 4e D&D allows players to take three actions on their turn: standard, move and minor. Different combinations of these actions are possible, but using these three actions are the basis for a round of combat.
Since the release of 4e many people have complained that combat is far too slow. The amount of options available and interupt powers just slow things down too much.
In a recent article Gamefiend from At-Will noted that “the speed of 4e is not a bug, rather it’s a feature.” I commend the full article to your attention (The Speed of Choice: the Real Reason your 4e Fights are so Damn Slow) as Gamefiend has hit on some very interesting points. Of course the speed of combat isn’t the true complaint that many have with 4e D&D. If this were the case the countless articles on speeding up combat that exist would be all that any gaming group would require.
However, the speed of combat isn’t the true issue with 4e D&D. Rather it is the cause of the issue which is a lack of time remaining to develop key role-playing opportunities. This is perhaps most prevalent in organized play where players only have four hours to finish an adventure, but it is also an issue for those playing with their home groups. If it takes approximately 10 encounters to gain a level and the average four hour session only has two or three combat encounters the pace of levelling and the game is very slow. If there is no room for role-playing in between combat encounters, D&D becomes more of a roll-playing game.
This is where the 4th action comes into play.
I’m not sure if we’re Paragon level yet, but with another year under our belt Ameron and I are pleased with The State of the Dungeon. It’s been a busy year as we’ve maintained our five day a week publishing schedule, seeking to bring you our thoughts and opinions on the great game that is Dungeons & Dragons.
We’ve sought to bring forward our thoughts on the game whether it’s changes to the DDI, character builder or LFR. Along the way we’ve developed a weekly coloumn that features D&D Encounters. While we may have eased off on the amount of skill challenges written, our archives still hold a vast treasure trove of challenges that a DM can easily drop into their game.
Looking forward we hope to renew our focus on Skill Challenges and Eberron. Two things that are vital to the home game of the Dungeon’s Master team. We also plan to make some cosmetic changes to the site, namely our banner which has made one death save too many. Of course the key component for us is engagement of you our readers. Without you this would just be a lonely corner of cyberspace. We’re thankful for our daily readers and all of our commentators. Together we all make D&D a better game to play.