Thanks to Judd sharing a really interesting link, I’ve been turned on to a really good 4e blog, At Will.  I’m still working my way through the archives, but there’s a lot of really good, really meaty stuff there (notably, some really great articles about Skill Challenges).  This is serious, quality stuff, and I want to give it a shout out as something well worth your time.

My honorable work on the Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV. continues. Now in 3e, we had the always fun, but quintessentially fiddly confused condition. If you need a refresher, here’s what confused looked like in the last edition:

A confused character’s actions are determined by rolling d% at the beginning of his turn: 01-10, attack caster with melee or ranged weapons (or close with caster if atacking is not possible); 11-20, act normally; 21-50, do nothing but babble incoherently; 51-70, flee away from caster at top possible speed; 71-100, attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self). A confused character who can’t carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused character. Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes. A confused character does not make attacks of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).

That is so not 4e. Yet, confused is a worthwhile condition to have in the game for both plot and strategy purposes. So how do we spoof confusion for 4e? We can start by looking out how the wizards at Wizards did it.

Confusion: The 27th-level wizard spell is an obvious place to begin. Essentially, it lets you dominate the target, moving him and making a basic attack against one of his allies.

Umber Hulk: The master of confusion himself is another obvious example. The target slides and is dazed.

I’m not a fan of these iterations. They don’t actually model confusion all that well since the enemy dictates the actions. In the case of the wizard’s spell, the player always gets a strategic advantage from the effect. Likewise, for the umber hulk, the DM gets to position the PC as best he can. These effects lack the randomness that should be inherent to confusion.

So, a couple more:

Beholder: The confusion ray forces the victim to charge his nearest ally and make a basic attack.

Black Lotus: This DMG poison is particularly relevant to the discussion at hand. Basic attack against the nearest creature (whether friend or foe).

These are good. They have that randomness. But I think we can do better. Here are some confused effects I’ve come up with:

• The target drops all items he is carrying and pulls off any clothes or armor he is wearing (perhaps simulating hallucinations of crawling bugs).
• The target uses an encounter attack power to attack a phantom enemy in an empty square.
• The target attacks himself with a basic attack.
• The target moves double his speed, changing direction each square and never entering the same square twice, provoking attacks of opportunity as normal.

So what can you come up with?

For Valentines Day, Mike Mearls wrote a love letter to resistances which reads more like a harsh breakup than a declaration of love. Mike’s got some serious objections to the role of resistances which I paraphrase as follows:

1. They’re boring.
2. They unbalance the utility of energy types
3. They undermine theme

I differ a bit on #1 but I am sympathetic to these concerns. However, they lead me to reach some very different conclusions, many of which are reflected in the hopefully-near-final draft of the Witch Doctor that I’ve handed off for editing. But before I get to that, let’s give these concerns a closer look.

1. They’re Boring

Ok, Mike doesn’t come right out and say this, but it’s pretty much implicit in his solution. He proposes more dynamic response, so that when you hit a fire creature with fire, something happens. Maybe it makes an attack or gains an action point or something else, but there’s a reaction.

This is an appealing thought, but as a DM I don’t view it as boring so much as it’s easy to keep track of and easy to speak to mechanically. One off abilities like that are things I might give a named boss, but if they’re too ubiquitous, you encounter a problem that already exists in 4e with vulnerability. Specifically, there’s a cool feat that keys off creatures that are vulnerable to cold, but it falls flat in practice because so few creatures are vulnerable to cold. There are several of creature who are penalized when they’re hit with cold (they’re slowed, for example) but they aren’t actually vulnerable to cold, so the feat does not apply. It’s a frustrating arrangement, but it highlights the problem with these one-offs. The creatures are definitely more colorful and interesting than they would be if they just took more damage, but it’s that much harder to tie that into the rest of the game.*

2. They Unbalance the Utility of Energy Types

He’s totally right about this one. While this was much more prevalent in 3e, it’s still an issue in 4e. Even setting aside non-elemental keywords like Charm and Fear, it’s a more useful to have An Acid weapon than a Fire one (though a Radiant one may be best of all) , and it’s more useful to have resistance to Fire or Necrotic than it is to Acid. It’s simple math – more creatures are resistant to fire, so it is pound for pound less useful. Similarly, fewer creatures are immune to Acid than are immune to Fire.

This is a problem that will never go away. Even if resistances are changed to something else, it will still remain because some elements will see more use than others, both universally and in the specific.

3. They Undermine Theme

Again, totally right. If you’re an arctic wizard, then it would make thematic sense that you have lots of ice spells. Unfortunately, since everything you’re going to run into is also arctic, they’re all pretty much immune to your spells, so the mechanically correct choice is for you to stock up on Fire spells. That’s kind of lame.

However, this is a problem that is intrinsic to the elemental keywords, and which will not be solved by changing resistances to something more dynamic. If you’re and arctic wizard and you know that your spells will not damage your arctic neighbors but will also make them more awesome, then your practical choice is once again weighted towards fire.

You’ll notice that 2 and 3 have the same underlying problem – that they’re really problems with the concept of elemental pairings than they are about the specific failings of resistance. That overlap means that they have the same solution – to make the elements more useful in their own right.

And this is where we come around to one of my frustrations with 4e as it stands. The current swath of elemental-oriented feats are pretty lame in just about every way. The pairings, stat requirements and overwhelming sameness of them all form a potent combination of things that are only so useful, often impossible to get, and flipping the bird to Wizards, who really need more & better feat options.

Now, there is a reasonable explanation for this lameness. The last thing anyone wants in 4e is a set of stacking elemental effects that result in a wizard who gets 5 or 6 improvements for a specific keyword that all stack in an abusive fashion. I dig that concern, but I think the PHB is far too conservative in its handling of these feats. That’s a subjective interpretation, but the rub is that I think a character choosing to specialize in an element should get at least as much benefit as a martial character gets out of his weapon choice.

For comparison, weapon choice offers an array of mechanical extras (including the non GSL ones in Adventurer’s Vault) and is the root of a number of feat choices. Consider the synergy between weapon focus and proficiency in an exotic weapon: with those two feats (or 1, if your a dwarf) you really shape how you are going to fight. It does not seem unreasonable to expect that the choice of element could have a similar effect.  The paragon level feats are a nice nod in this direction, but they are ultimately a little thin on the ground.

It’s this line of thinking that has shaped the feat section of the Witch Doctor, and lead it to include a number of feats that will probably be of no use to Witch Doctors. The goal with them is to model after weapon feats, so that elementally inclined characters have some more choices available to them that are in line with the benefits that martial characters have. I am, I admit, genuinely excited to see them reach the light of day.

* - There is a subtle point in Mike’s solution that also bears mentioning: It speeds up fights. 4e has occasional problems with enemies that take too long to die. Resistance increases their staying power which exacerbates the issue. However, I think that’s a separate concern, and it is perhaps no coincidence that it’s a problem we’ve been working on solutions for.

One other point in defense of Mike’s idea (because, shockingly, the man knows what he’s talking about) is that you could remove the mechanical disconnect with a unified nomenclature.  That means  vulnerability  could include other descriptors than just a numeric.  Thus, ‘vulnerable cold 5′ could become “vulnerable cold: Slowed (save ends)” Or “vulnerable fire: immobilized until the end of next turn”, so that everything still keys off the word “Vulnerable” and you can now tie other mechanics into it ( the colon is optional, but I admit I just kind of like it).  It might also work to use “vulnerable cold 0″ but that seems a little awkward.

This requires only a very small hack to work, but because it changes the core rules, it’s kind of a dead end to offer up as an option.  Since there’s no way to meaningful contribute it to the body of rules, it would wither on the vine. Still, I encourage people to adopt the notation – maybe it will enter common use and prove my cynicism wrong.

That still only solves problem #1, but I mention it to illustrate that Mike’s solution and mine can easily work in parallel with just a few tweaks.

Even if you missed our WHERE ARE YOUR GODS NOW promotion yesterday, you’ll find that Gods of the Shroud remains on sale (now at the bookshelf, IPR, and RPGNow)  — at $1 off — through the NEXT Friday the 13th, coming in March!

… and I happily played 3e for years, but anyone who wants to know why I’m a full-fledged 4e-phile need only look at this entry for Paizo’s RPG Superstar. That statblock is absurd and, for any given adventure, 90% useless. And yet, as Clark Peterson says downthread:

This kind of mind-numbing number crunching is one of the things that make [sic] me look to 4E for simplicity. But 3E/Pathfinder is complex for a reason–because it really works well. So being able to put this together is something an RPG Superstar needs to be able to do.

I’ll keep my shiny new epic-level-dragon-statblock-in-seven-column-inches ruleset, thank you very much.

It’s Friday the 13th — perfect time for a WHERE ARE YOUR GODS NOW sale.

For the next 24 hours (or so — until I change it back), GODS OF THE SHROUD will be discounted an extra $1.30 on both the One Bad Egg Bookshelf and IPR.

If you haven’t picked this one up yet, we really think it’s one of our underappreciated gems. But don’t take our word for it — read this review: http://grandwiki.wikidot.com/rvgods-of-the-shroud

“Then another meteor shower hit (this one on the Michael Bey asteroid movie scale) and Our Heroes (and the NPCs) got transported to a Hollow World. Locally, there are dinosaurs and a race of tree dwelling monkey people (1) who had been waiting for a long time for Our Heroes (and the NPCs) to arrive because their god (the Walker in Mists) had uplifted them from monkeys and told them to make a nice place for them and wait for them to show up to save the world. The Walker in Mists was unhelpful as to what exactly they are to do, but they do have a cool treehouse and a tribe of monkey people that think they’re pretty impressive.”

Read the full skinny at RickJ’s Livejournal.

Time for another conversion of a 3e favorite. Contingency seems like a quintessential utility power.

Contingency          Wizard Utility 16
Always be prepared.
Daily * Arcane
Standard Action (Special)          Personal
Special: You can only use this power during a short or extended rest.
Effect: You can use another power on yourself so that it comes into effect at a future time under some condition that you dictate when using this power. The power brought into effect must be one that has a range of “personal” or has a target that may legally target only “you”, e.g., “you or one creature”. The condition must be expressed as a trigger, similar to when you ready an action. Thereafter, if the trigger occurs, the companion power takes effect as an immediate interrupt. The effect ends when the contingency occurs or when you take an extended rest.

The Shroud has changed the world in many ways, some profound, but others more subtle. This is the story of how the Shroud changed a man’s beliefs without changing his body. A man named Wilhelm ark-Trasser found himself on a quest that led him into the dark heart of the Shroudlands. There he faced the toughest challenge of all: remaining true to his principles in the face of adversity. The Shroud changed him, and he changed the world. Will the Shroud change you?

Within these pages, you will find details about Wilhelm ark-Trasser and his group of missionaries, called the Purifying Horde. You’ll also encounter three new nonplayer characters, nine new monsters, a new disease called shroudrot, the bizarre device called the shroudmask, and six adventure ideas. All together, it’s enough material to launch a full mini-campaign suitable for heroic tier characters, plumbing the fundamental question: when do the ends no longer justify the means?

Shrouded Agendas: The Purifiers is priced at $4.99 and goes on sale February 3rd.

Find purchasing details on the One Bad Egg store