My experiments on creating a D&D 4e game he could participate on was really driven by him. He was at EndGame’s last Anniversary party where some short two hour 4e demos were being run by members of the RPGA and he was allowed to sit in on one. For a 5 year old to sit patiently for two hours and play just about anything blew me away. After that, I knew I had something to work with.

So, why 4e? The discrete “encounters” in the game make for a very comfortably timed session for someone young. I know I could do the same things with any number of different systems out there, and skin it with a fantasy theme… but why? The grid and painted plastic figures I can easily acquire for D&D make my own personal barrier to entry in terms of set-up time almost non-existent. He also really gets the idea of a board-game, which is what combat in 4e looks like to someone so little. Having defined squares, and a defined way to move gives him a chance to really visualize what is happening in the game not only through the story we tell, but through looking at the table.

So why not just play Heroscape or something, you may ask…?  Well, keep readin’.

When bringing a very young child into your D&D game there are a few things to consider. First and foremost is:

Don’t shove the rules down their throat. Let’s step back and look at this from another way. Have you ever gone to a game store to get a demo on something from someone who certainly knows how to play the game, but doesn’t necessarily know how to show others how to play? Generally, the best way to approach anything like this is to step your “demo-ee” into the game. Play cards up on the table that would normally be blind. Discuss movement of a miniature before, during, and after you move it around the board. Most importantly, you don’t treat it as if you were playing a game to win, you play to educate.

That’s how your D&D game is going to be for an awful long time if you include a small child. Almost every week that we play, he retains some part of the rules we teach him. After a couple months, he is really starting to get the movement on the grid, albeit in his own fashion. It’s incredibly interesting to watch a 5 year old’s “play brain” cross over into the formula and structure that is an RPG.

In many ways, he is “playing” with us, just as he would play with his friends at school. He moves his figure on the grid making sound effects, and telling a story as he does it. Through his “play”, he is giving us great role-play. In a very serious fight, he moved his Dwarven Fighter, “Hitterman”, across the grid right into a barrel. The fight had gone slightly south for him, so it was time in his mind to ditch and run. HORRIBLE for the rest of the party… but a truly glorious RP moment.

That leads us to the next point:

Roll with the punches when playing with small kids. Role-playing their fun is such a good way to get them engaged. When Hitterman went for the barrel, we all role-played around it. I as the GM, modified my approach from the baddies to give the rest of the party a bit of a chance to reform around the loss of the Main Tank.

There have been many other situations where the boy has patiently waited through a whole round of initiative, then needs to do something big to get it out of his system. Maybe that’s a double move to then attack; just let it go.

This ties right back into bending the rules a bit. Yeah, I know how combat works in 4e… but to keep him engaged, he occasionally gets a re-roll or a second attack. It’s just about fun, but again… we make him talk about what he is doing, as Hitterman would say it.

As we have afforded him a few “do-overs” he has really started to see when he is getting that kind of pass. He has even turned it down in the last session or so knowing “he missed.” He role-plays that now too. He role-plays his challenges. “Hey you! I am gonna hit you with my axe!” And, the target is marked…that kind of thing.

As we have played even more, we are now beginning to move off the grid.  Each and every session we have with the boy starts as an encounter, for all the reasons I have listed above. As we have gotten a few more sessions under our belts, before we fight, we do a little talking between the PCs, or the PCs and the baddies. We are slowly starting to swing the sessions away from pure “Combat RP”, to “RP AND Combat RP.” It’s subtle, and I am not sure he knows what we are doing yet, but it is giving him the chance to start telling Hitterman’s story a little more.

On his end, it’s basic, but I feel like we are giving him the tools to progress as he matures through time. As we play even more we won’t start the game on the grid, we’ll start just talking, like I do when my “adults game” happens. But that is still a little ways off.

4e has a fantastic tool kit under the hood for you to get your kids and their friends playing RPGs. It’s a concept many of us grew up with, and learned on our own through brute force and a lot of trial and error. If you are my age, you were SUPER lucky to have a kid a couple grades up who knew the rules and was willing to let you “play with the older kids.” You were WAY lucky to have had a parent who was a gamer and introduced you to Red Box, White Box, or even Chainmail.

We as geek parents have such a fricking awesome chance to show our kids the hobby we love so much. The tools that are available to us are just fantastic… and with a little time and patience, we can help them slay as many Dragons as they care to.

Conditions cover the full spectrum. Some conditions scale inherently, and some scale poorly or not at all. And sometimes this isn’t obvious. A character who is weakened deals half damage whether their performing a simple stab to the face or unleashing a fusillade of arrows to each enemy in range, whether their dealing 1d6 damage or 20d6. That would seem to scale rather obviously. However, at higher levels of play, characters are able to produce significantly greater effects than merely dealing damage. Thus, weakened becomes less problematic; it does not scale perfectly.

As part of my work, I did a thorough examination of all of the conditions in the PHB. Below is a portion of the work, including some of my thoughts on each. In addition to some insight on the Codex, you might find the analysis useful in your own creations, e.g., a new creature or magic item.

Blinded: This includes a typical parcel of effects, i.e., granting combat advantage and being unable to flank. The Perception penalty should not be overlooked (see, deafened), but it’s less relevant since the condition itself grants combat advantage. Notably, all of your targets have total concealment. Normally, this does not affect close and area attacks. However, it is important to consider that some such powers specifically require that the character be able to see the target—look at virtually all of the close powers of the fighter, ranger, and rogue. This condition can be highly problematic. Definitively paragon tier (the rogue’s blinding barrage daily power being the exception that proves the rule).

Dazed: Another CA/no-flank condition. This one also strips an action from the victim. However, that effect is tempered by access to action points. Similarly, with at least one action available, the victim can still seek refuge or otherwise defend to prevent the multiplicative effect of some, more-onerous conditions. Notably, many heroic-tier powers cause the dazed condition, e.g., cleric’s wrathful thunder, wizard’s chill strike, etc. Heroic tier.

Deafened: Much less onerous than blinded, for obvious reasons. Indeed, the deafness can occasionally be a boon, e.g., vs. a harpy. Still, the penalty to Perception is comically large, to the point where it is supposed to make the character fail in all but the most extreme cases. Failing a Perception check in combat is principally relevant for one reason: using Stealth to gain combat advantage. In essence, the condition grants combat advantage. Still, deafened is relatively easier to deal with. Interestingly, none of the core PHB classes have abilities that cause the deafened condition, but still easy to slot as heroic tier.

Dominated: Not generally applicable to poison since it specifically assumes a third-party actor, i.e., the dominating creature. I could conceive of a poison that, say, made the victim impressionable, which allowed a person to make a Diplomacy or Intimidate check to dominate until the end of the turn or something like that. A little too kludgy for my tastes.

Dying: On the one hand, this seems inherently scalable. Essentially, it deals damage equal to your hit point level. However, it’s still an incredibly damaging, and thus potent, effect in any case. Additionally, more than many of the other conditions, it is far easier for epic-level characters to deal with dying. The Heal check to stabilize is a flat DC15, which is essentially automatic in the epic tier. Also see the life charm in AV.

Helpless: This is a one-trick pony, and its name is coup de grace. The CDG is even more potent than dying. Where the latter provides a clock in the form of death saves, the former opens the possibility to immediate death—difficult to pull of, but still possible. Epic tier.

Immobilized: One of the less impactful conditions, this one doesn’t scale very well. At higher levels, alternate methods of movement, specifically teleportation, are more common. Heroic tier.

Marked: Like dominated, not generally applicable to poison. Again, it’s possible to come up with a way of using it, but….

Petrified: This is an interesting one. In a general sense, it’s not nearly as bad as the other take-no-action conditions as a result of the damage resistance. In other words, the target is unlikely to suffer additional harm of serious consequence. The problem of course arises due to the fact that, in most instances, petrified is a permanent condition. A poison with “petrified (save ends)” is not as detrimental as dying, helpless, or unconscious. However, it’s still obviously more problematic than other conditions that merely limit the actions of the target. I peg this one as epic tier, if on the low end.

Prone: This is an odd one because it’s not a condition so much as a position, like kneeling or standing on tippy-toes. However, like an inverse example of petrified, we can play around with how the condition is used. Consider: “prone (save ends)”. And don’t forget the errata (which clarifies the movement restrictions when prone). In any case, it’s a minimally complicating condition. Heroic tier.

Restrained: Obviously, simply a more dramatic example of immobilized. Paragon tier.

Slowed: Easily one of the least complicating conditions—probably the single least complicating. Quintessentially heroic tier.

Stunned/Surprised: If you didn’t catch the errata, you don’t realize that these two conditions are now identical. Here we have the CA/no-flank combo with a take-no-action effect as well. This is essentially a middle ground between the limiting conditions of heroic tier and the more lethal conditions of epic tier. Thus, paragon tier.

Unconscious: Just another flavor of helpless. “Helpless-plus” if you will. The rogue’s 9th-level knockout power is, again, the exception that proves the rule. Indeed, compare it to the 15th-level garrote grip power. Easily epic tier.

Weakened: The ultimate auto-scaler, weakened is minimally problematic. Along with slowed, quintessentially heroic-tier.

Curious? Learn more about it at our Open Gods page!

I have two beautiful daughters, Jadyn and Jara. You’ll pardon the lightness of this post. I was supposed to post a quick preview of my work on the Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV, but I didn’t have much time yesterday as I was taking care of the kids.

Jara (left) & Jadyn (right)

See, cute as a button. As anyone with kids knows–that would be Chris, and Rob is only just beginning to see what I’m talking about–they somehow manage to suck all of the time out of the day. My “regular” D&D game plays once a month–if we’re lucky. So I have to squeeze in some of my design work while the kids are playing nearby, and I often have a lot of my D&D stuff lying around, which occasionally draws interest.

For Jadyn, it’s my big bag of dots and little men. For those who don’t speak three-year-old, that’s dice and minis. And Jadyn absolutely loves playing with them. Usually, this involves Jadyn pretending that the dice, multi-colored as they are, are different kinds of foods. Oh, that yellow icosahedron, apparently it’s a banana.

In a larger sense, it’s fascinating to have kids of this age exposed to the trappings of D&D. She’s not old enough to understand that it’s a game, but she’s old enough to ask a lot of questions of the why-is-the-sky-blue variety. Often, this forces me to think creatively when answering. “What’s that?” she asks, pointing to a mini of a bug-eyed kuo-toa with a long spear. “Uhm, he is a fisherman. He uses the spear to catch fish–just like that dog in Go Dog Go!” “What’s this?” she asks, pointing to a picture of a vaasi assault mech in a copy of Dawning Star lying around the house. “That’s a robot,” I say. “Like Wall-e?” she asks excitedly. “Yep, just like that.”

So, I’m just starting up a D&D 4th ed. game, basically as a nostalgia jag (I’m one of those snooty indie gamers from the Forge crowd – grin). And I ran across your Witch Doctor when looking for something else, and offered it to my players. One of them really likes the idea, but the whole primal-animist thing doesn’t really mesh with her background, so we’re re-skinning it. And I figured I’d share.

See full background below. (Hakeem is another PC, a cleric.) Basically, what we’ve got is an empire built around ancestor-reverence and longing for the days of power to return. And the upper tiers of what is essentially a priesthood-slash-secret-service are tiefling witch doctors … renamed for this use to Ancestor Channelers, tapping into the heavy-duty magic of the ancient days without actually having magical talent themselves.

The witch doctor’s mask re-skins to a veil, a very important part of their identity. Don’t touch the veil, trust me – can you say involuntary Infernal Wrath and Chains of Spirit? Veil of the Ancestors is of course the most common (and is our PC’s choice).  The staff is more of a wizard(esque) staff, rather than a medicine stick or the like. Most of the rest of it carries across very nicely indeed.

(The player hates earthquakes but likes the Close Wall powers a lot, so I’ve also given her Twisting Fire as a fire-keyword skin over Tremor Strike.  I figure the fire keyword cancels out, between possible ways to improve it and the relatively high likelihood of encountering resistant enemies, and certainly I can tweak it so that’s true.)

So far, so good.  Chargen was last night, and the Ancestor Channeler’s player is very jazzed about her character. I’ll let you know how it goes, especially if the WD-specific elements end up prominent at any point.

Oh, and here’s an item I added to the adventure’s treasure (actually the best item in the set, this being a level 1 party’s first adventure). Basically it makes Evil Eye “sticky” for one instance of an effect. In theory it’s not WD-specific … but in practice it’s certainly intended to complement that class. If you’d like to use it either direct or as inspiration when fleshing out the Witch Doctor in his final incarnation, I grant you full rights to do so without compensation, as a thank-you for making this interesting class available.

[Awesome campaign background behind the cut....]

The Morav Resurgence

Far from here, where the bronze grass blows in the hot wind, there is enlightenment and deep history. These are the lands of the Morav Resurgence.

Once, the empire of Bael Turath ruled over continents. But the tiefling dukes were thrown down in the chaos of war, as were the dragonborn princes, the rivals who doomed them both to die. Some say Bael Turath was a capital of learning, of art, of truth and power.

Some, such as the matriarchs of the Morav Resurgence. Named for a province of the ancient empire, the Resurgence lays claim to the power and glory of old. It asserts its rights as heir to that devil-riddled rule. The fell queens built a civilization out of ashes and scattered tribes, seemingly out of nothing but sheer force of will, and today it is a power to be reckoned with indeed. The local lords hereabouts do not know how lucky they are that two seas, a desert, and many great peaks lie between here and there.

The Resurgence is profoundly misandrist, sexist to an extreme. The highest rank to which any male can aspire translates simply as worth living, or worthies; most males are slaves, they cannot own property, speak in law, or dream of rising higher. Those who might say that the interpretation that the fell queens have taken from their histories is, perhaps, biased – skims over certain evidence and grants great weight to others – do not say so very loudly, or very long. For Morav has at least two things right.

First, its readings of history may not have produced an exact copy of the social and political structure of Bael Turath, but whatever they have created, it has endured – centuries now – and shows no signs of decay. Their philosophers point to the three-angled structure of their society, where alliances or enmities along axes of clan, of caste, and of precedence (formalized status) provide for multiple motives in every interaction, with no pure enmities leading to chaos, nor pure alliances leading to centralization. Each axis has its own rulership structure – the rosetta of each circle of precedence, for example, could be likened to a continuous stitch&bitch circle with the power of life and wealth, or poverty and death, over thousands. They point, too, to the breeding protocols which have produced “high tieflings” – none of the ragtag common breed so often seen in other lands, more kin to the ancient tapestries and (of course) more beautiful.

Second, it has found… something… in its efforts to reflect back to an age of glory. The topmost castes give rise to the faced ones, veiled executors (always female, of course, always tiefling) whose connection to the ancestral glories is more than just politics and boasts; the old power runs hot and cold in their veins, and their arm is long. Many are those who have been visited by even the lowest of these, the ‘searching faces’, who have never disobeyed even the spirit of the law again in their lives – or who have simply disappeared with neither apology nor redress.

Materi (mother) Vanglashi is a powerful human princess of the Red Tree clan (a reference to ancient myth, and a biome which has been extinct for ages).  But she wants more. Having positioned her clan at the top of the ladder of clans, she has turned to the paths of precedence. Precedence has its own rules, but of all the three axes, it is the most meritocratic, in the long run; it is achieved by deeds done and accomplishments shown. Many such games are in play, chess sets upon go stones upon coins… but there are some achievements which are seldom accomplished, and one such is to have sired a worthy. Hakeem (not of the Red Tree – males have no clan, of course) is a direct descendant of Materi Vanglashi by way of a favored daughter, now dead. Having been conditioned into the service of Sherayem, the goddess of war (who the ignorant foreigners sometimes, appallingly, call Kord, a male), Hakeem is potentially positioned to earn the title of worthy, a deed which would speak to the preferment of the Red Tree and Vanglashi herself.

To qualify, he must return on the Feast of Those Who Must Return, near the end of the wet season, before a goat born on the day he left bears her third young … having accomplished all of the list of tasks set to one of his position.  To heal a thousand sufferers; to smite a hundred foes; to fight in ten great battles; and to slay a mighty demon (ancient enemies of the devils who made Bael Turath great). If he returns successful, his bronze slave-collar, held here in keeping while he strives, will be melted down and cast instead into a mask, to hide his maleness and reflect back an echo of the womanhood he has come near. And he will be the closest thing to free his life can promise.

He’s running late.

The goat’s belly is tight with seed. At most three months remain, and there has been no word.

One of the Searching Faces has been summoned to the tower….

Now we get to 4e. In this edition, a more narrow focus is entirely appropriate and allows us to recast this classic to function as it did 99% of the time: turning the dragon into a goldfish and watching it flop around.

As always, feedback is appreciated. I could easily see a utility version of the spell that, say, allows the wizard to grant a variety of abilities based on the form chosen, e.g., fly speed for winged creatures, swim speed for aquatic creatures, tiny creatures, insubstantial creatures, etc.

So how do you get to the “zero” level of 4th edition?  How stripped down can you get?  Here’s my thoughts.  (And I’m curious — is it something you’d be interested in seeing expanded into an actual product? Or is this better left as a wee little blog post tossed out there on GM’s Day?)

When it comes down to it, I’m thinking about, in essence, negative levels — ones where a level 1 encounter will be a real challenge, and a single level 1 monster could take some real work.  The progression I’m thinking about would essentially be work as follows.  (The XP entry-points to each level are figured by working backwards along the “+250 XP per jump” lines of the PC positive level progression.  It takes 1000 XP to get to level 2, 1250 to get to level 3 — so it should take 750 to get to level 1, 500 to get to level 0, 250 to get to level -1.)

Note: Things COULD start at a Level -3 or lower if you want, but at that point you start stripping away even more essentials: no at-wills, no starting feat, etc.

Level -2 (-1500 XP)
You start out with your class features, 1 feat, and one at-will ability — no dailies, no encounters. Your level/2, rounded down, will also be at -1, which will make you just a bit more vulnerable and a bit less effective (lower defenses, lower chances to hit).

Concerns: Humans will still get the leg up here with a second at-will, but maybe that’s OK.  Any ability that provides area of effect will have some significant potency, so at the least, Wizards and Dragonborn will have some serious early mojo.  On the other hand, this is a pretty temporary level, since you’re looking at earning only 250 XP to get out of it, and having a little imbalance isn’t going to hang around for long.  Honestly, when you strip away a lot of the class abilities, it’s expected that the influence of racial powers will be more strongly felt.  And that one feat you start out with will be pretty influential.  It’s a texture I kind of like for this.

Level -1 (-1250 XP)
You gain your first encounter ability. -.5 rounds down to -1, so you’re still at a -1 on a number of things.

Level 0 (-750 XP)
You get your second at-will ability.  Your level/2 rounded down jumps to +0, so you start being more on par with your level 1 “final” form.

Level 1 (0 XP)
You gain your daily ability.  Congrats; you’ve made it to Level 1.

But that’s not the only thing that “scales”, here.  You’re also talking about altering what it takes to make a solid encounter.

In particular, the Target Encounter XP totals table expands to include the negative levels (which I’ve gotten at again by following the early positive level progressions backwards).

So here, you can see that a group of 4 Level -2 PCs with only one at-will ability apiece (plus class features, etc) would be at “par” with 4 minions, or a single level 1 monster.  I’m not sure if this math really bears out — this is a collection of Zero To Hero notes that haven’t seen any kind of playtest — but I *think* it still works out.  If I recall correctly, the idea is that it takes about 10 standard-level encounters to make it up to the next level.  At level -2, the standard same-level encounter reward would be 25 XP, and it takes 250 XP to get from level -2 to level -1, so the conceptual math there works out.  The idea of a pair or trio of level 1 monsters really making a group sweat has a certain perverse appeal to it as well.

So while I’m not sure if my balance notions are off, I think there’s something to be said for this setup.  And more to the point, folks who start at level -2 might end up feeling like they’ve “earned” their level 1 awesome more thoroughly.  Which is one of the big points of the Zero to Hero concept, right?

Let me tell you about my character.

I’ve been playing in a regular game for several years now. We made the switch over to 4e, and after years at the DM helm, I got to play a PC. I was immediately drawn to a tiefling starlock. My DM sensibilities–meticulous attention to worldbuilding detail, a nigh-encyclopedic comprehension of the rules, etc.–combined with my thirst for actually playing a PC combined for me to go a little overboard. I spent hours coming up with his background and hours more tweaking my build. I think I spent a couple of hours just deciding which feat to take.

Playing Garnet was a blast. He was a godless cuss with a touch of Locke Lamora in him. He carried a huge greatsword strapped to his back, which he couldn’t unsheathe much less wield. He delivered the killing blow on Balgron the Fat. He just got his rod of dark reward.

Last week, I dumped my beloved Garnet for the sexy new guy on the block.

After three levels, I’m switching characters so I can play a witch doctor. Not just any witch doctor: Exton, the gnome with the mask of the elements and an unhealthy obsession with fire. I’m still nuts, mind you.

So why the change? Because the witch doctor is fun. (It didn’t hurt that our wizard was also looking to make a change, freeing up the controller role.)

As I was editing the witch doctor, I noticed something I didn’t pick up on with a cursory review. Read through the witch doctor’s power array, really look at what they are doing, and you’ll see something interesting. With most of the core classes, there’s this bare interplay between the color and the effect of the power. In many cases–not all, certainly–you get the feeling that the effects were created and then a bit of flavor text was drafted to suit.

With the witch doctor, I am convinced that Rob went about it the other way round. (And, no, I haven’t asked him.) That is, he thought about what kinds of cool effects should a witch doctor be able to create? Now, how can I draft a power to suit? This is a subtle but dramatic design methodology, because it creates a stronger link between color and mechanics.

A great example of this is inevitable progress of flame:

So a witch doctor creates a serpent of fire that slithers across the battlefield immolating all enemies in its path. Now, how can we create that effect mechanically? Rob makes it a wall (close wall, natch) that removes 1 square of one end and adds it to the other each round. (I’m proud to say that the bit about spending a move action to repeate the advance was my suggestion.)

So I can’t wait to take Exton out for a spin. (Now, if only I can find a suitable mini for a gnome witch doctor.) I’ll post here about our next session and how it goes. In the meantime, I’m happy to report that Mike, our DM, has co-opted Garnet as an NPC. So I’m sure we’ll be seeing the fruits of his twisted, nefarious plotting down the road.