Blazej's page

I've posted an event already for the Saturday of August 13th. I'm going to try to run parts 1 and 2 of First Steps at my local store (A Hidden Fortress). Overall though, I'm mostly curious to see if there were any other local PFS players in my area that I could draw into a more consistent set of PFS games.

So far I only have the friends I've known for years, but I don't know much about other local groups. I wanted to see if there were any other nearby players that might be interested.

I just came out of my first session following a player getting Ultimate Magic and the first encounter where a caster used terrible remorse. I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do against that because it just shuts down so many encounters with or without considering the post by Jason on the spell.

Should I run with the spell as written in Ultimate Magic or should I use the bit from Jason that I can tell for certain on the spell (On successful initial save, lose next turn -2 AC.*)? As I said, I'm not exactly how to (or if I can) respond to this spell.

*This wouldn't have changed anything during this session, losing the next turn was enough to kill Calipharo and would have been enough to decimate Achistem

I am almost certain I have seen this question before, but I wasn't able to find it easily. One of my regular players asked what the rules were, if any, for applying one of the new archetypes from Ultimate Magic to their current 9th level character.

I am almost certain that applying that is not within the PFS rules, but I wanted to confirm it for him.

Yesterday I had a new player come with a character just out of the Red Box adventure. He went through the store stock and grabbed the Player's Handbook off the wall and purchased it. This certainly worked for him, but there were a few bits that didn't fit for his group.

Specifically, his group had two rogues from the Red Box that seemed to use the Essentials builds which don't mesh particularly well with the rogue build in the Player's Handbook. He had a wizard so the book should work fine for him, except one of the questions he had was what a 3rd level common magic item was (the adventure he gave it as treasure before). I explained that common items were a new thing in 4th edition, told him what a common item looks like, and informed him that the update on Wizards of the Coast's webpage would have updates for the book.

Afterwards the store owner asked me if he should be carrying the Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands instead of the Player's Handbook for newer players. I bounced back and forth a bit before tentatively suggesting that a new player probably should get Heroes of the Fallen Lands (and not the Player's Handbook), Monster Vault (and not the Monster Manual), and the Dungeon Master's Guide. While the Player's Handbook is still fine to me, I thought it would be unnecessarily confusing to get a book new and some rules to be revised when you join another group.

I wanted to check with other people to try and see if I was missing a required book or if books like the Player's Handbook should be kept in stock. It there any books you would recommend to the new player and his friends?

I just wanted to throw this out here, rather than other places because this is the community I enjoy above others.

A couple of weeks ago my FLGS got a package with my name on it. When I got to the shop, the owner gave it to and I opened it up to find a thank you note from Wizards of the Coast because I ran the D&D Encounters at the local shop for a number of months.

With that they included a large calender with a lot of neat art, a pair of packs of fortune cards (along with a promo card), and the bulk of a set of Gale Force Nine's Dungeon Master's Tokens.

I was quite surprised and happy to get a gift, I felt at least I could at least do is talk about this neat stuff I got.

The tokens are nice. Obviously focused on 4th edition, but I probably will be using them in all my games. They are a lot better quality than I would have imagine from the pictures. They are not awe inspiring, but they don't feel cheap to me and seem as though that they will last quite a while.

The fortune cards look nice. Most cards though get repeated images of symbols based upon the type of fortune it is (shield for defense, sword for attack, etc.), it would seem only rare cards get unique art, which I understand. Don't like the rarities on the cards though, don't think it fits for how they seem to be used.

Not too sure about the rules for them, my games seem to operate slowly without the cards and I just imagine some players wanting to spend some extra time rereading the card and analyzing their situation before moving on with their turn. I can't imagine it would add too much time, but my thoughts generally are focused on speeding up turns.

I am not sure how much of an advantage a player with the cards would be compared to a character without. Many of the cards are usable in a certain situation, others have some restriction on how you can use the boon, others require a sacrifice, and others include a risk. I would say that the deck certainly boosts the power a bit and that a thoughtfully built deck can be significantly better than that. Just not sure how big the difference in power is.

Overall I like the "gamble" cards more than the others though there are a couple that I really enjoy thematically. I want to try and use the cards in a game, but with modified rules because I don't have enough cards for all my players to play by the suggested rules.

If one wanted, I think that they can be used between d20 systems in a fashion. The closer the game is to D&D the easier it is to use them. You would have to reinterpret what somethings mean on the fly though.

There is another thing that I enjoyed about the packs. Along with the fortune cards in the pack, there is the standard card with advertising on the back, but on the flip side there is a card that you can use for tracking things in your games. For example, the two that I got are an initiative tracker (a PC/NPC/Monster card that has spaces for writing down the Initiative, perception, AC, Fortitude, Reflex, Will, and Name/Description/HP) and a condition tracker (a generic card with space for condition's description, duration, and other information about it). I wouldn't buy the packs specifically for them, but they are a nice extra inside the packs.

That went a lot longer than I had originally intended, but I am avoiding the temptation to avoid culling it. Again I really enjoyed the gift package I got, it really did feel nice to get an unexpected reward for running the Encounters games.

I know that I probably was just very slow to just discovering the Interactive Gamma World Character Sheet, but I recently discovered it, have been having a fun time just playing with it, and wanted to share it with anyone who didn't know about it either.

Party:

• Elf Alchemist 6
• Halfling Fighter 5/Hellknight 1
• Human Ranger 6
• Half-elf Cleric 3/Wizard 3
• Halfling bard (sandman archetype) 5/assassin 1

After a brief warm-up battle for the party I set them against an encounter with a pair of destined kobold sorcerer word casters and some scaly pets (Pteranodon and Deinoychus). The kobolds were set up in a room filled with difficult terrain.

With an alarm tripped by the party, the kobolds had a chance to cast some spells in preparation for the battle (protection from energy (fire), force shield + enhance form (Dexterity), and eagle's splendor on themselves and then fortify on themselves and their three pets.

The party was delayed for a few rounds by the pets, the kobolds took the opportunity to cast invisibility on themselves and then were promptly hit with glitterdust and blinded. The kobolds spent the turn of blindness to cast blur on themselves. I threw a good number of word spells in the following turns, (Large Line + Boosted Burning Flash + Cold Snap, Medium Burst + Frost Fingers, Small Burst + Torture, Single + Force Bolt + Burning Flash. After this the kobold pair were both defeated.

I didn't do a whole lot to prepare for this fight aside form setting up the stat block I set up below. As a consequence I think I defaulted to using more powerful 3rd level word combinations without much thought. Making the words was pretty easy and quick with the notes that I made (On the stat block I marked family name, point costs, and target limitations). Once I figured out the base word that I wanted to use, I found it simple to attach the other words to it, the biggest problem was that I wasn't prepared with any idea of what spells I wanted them to cast before hand.

This next encounter was the third encounter of the day and the party had expended a good chunk of their power in the previous encounters. Down a passageway a conjuration specialist wizard summoned one of his 4th level fire elemental summons to seek out the party. He cast a protective ward (enhancing Constitution) on himself before spending a few rounds summoning a few of his shielded fiendish rats (2nd level spells) to aid the fire elemental that had not returned yet.

Throughout the battle the summons were threatened by the alchemist's dispelling bombs, but only one of them managed to dispel any of the summons. When the party started getting near enough to him, the wizard used his fifth level spell cast shielded servitor V to summon a bearded devil with a force shield. With all it's augmentations (+4 Strength, +4 Constitution from Augment Summoning, and +4 AC from the force shield word), the creature hit the party pretty hard (in part because the fighter had not reached the battle yet leaving the bearded devil fighting the alchemist.

The wizard then cast fire wall separating himself from the rest of the battle. The bard was the first across using a combination of stealth and blur to get through the wall undetected. The wizard then used the scroll of invisibility the next round to hide from anyone that crossed the fire wall. The bard then grabbed at the square the wizard was standing in an attempt to use his sandman power to steal a spell from him. This brought up the question in my mind if he could steal a words of power spell that was prepared. It didn't work though, but the wizard panicked at the touch and fired (and missed) with a corrosive pain spell.

Finally, after the bearded devil was killed, the conjurer then summoned a replacement using his 5th level perfect servitor IV. While it was the same word level, the augmented fiendish wolf was much easier to defeat (and much less dangerous) than the augmented bearded devil.

With the party overcoming his last powerful summon, the wizard took the opportunity to use dimensional steps to escape the battle.

The wizard had a lot of control over the fight, I would really say that the thing that really worked in his favor was that he could summon as a standard action with his servitor words. He was able to quickly send out his summons and replace them if necessary.

There was a comment at the table that his higher level spells were inappropriate for his CR, specifically the fact that he could summon a monster from the fifth level list with +4 AC (single + servitor V + force shield) without requiring more than a 5th level spell slot. I believe that (I may be remembering incorrectly) it was also said that because of these feature (to summon a 5th level creature while also empowering it with a first level spell at no additional increase to level) that the system was inappropriate for PCs. I disagree, but I thought it appropriate to pass on the concern from those players.

Below are a few of the notes that I typed as I was putting together the NPCs and their spells.

Since the only divination words available could not be combined with any other effects, I quickly went with divination as a prohibited school for the wizard. If he needed to detect magic or thoughts, he could easily spend the two spell slots to prepare those spells.

Trying to create something with the barrier words, but kept finding that there wasn't much I could add to them without reducing their duration to instantaneous.

A few of the words, specifically the acid words, should have the (creation) subschool next to them (like the other acid firing spells).

The saving throw of the horror (fear) word should be Fortitude partial instead of Fortitude negates

There wasn't a lot of variety among the 0-level words. There wasn't much I could put together with them.

I specifically avoided the force block word because it couldn't really be combined with any words that I could see (If attached to any of the buff spells, it reduced the duration to a single round) and because it was very likely that anything in the battle already had an armor bonus from some other source.

Noticed shock arc offered a saving throw whether or not it required an attack roll.

There isn't a real point to using heighten on a word spell that I could see.

I didn't notice any rules for creating scrolls, potions, and wands using the words of power including which classes would be able to use them.

Among my current PFS groups, it often seems like the characters aren't even Pathfinder Society members. Instead they are just members of their faction along for the ride so they can complete their faction mission. The worst usually is when a player forgets details about the adventure they are playing in (because it wasn't important for their faction mission) or when a player gets so focused on completing a faction mission that they ignore the actual Pathfinder mission (or leave it for party members to complete).

There are a few PFS scenarios that have missions that exacerbate the problem by having certain faction tell their members to go off and attack the Pathfinder Society. I feel they are incredibly inappropriate for groups that don't want to piss of the Pathfinder Society.

Given my experiences running and playing through these adventures, if a faction mission asked for the character to shoot a Venture-Captain with a crossbow bolt, then that character would be shot a couple of sentences into the adventure preamble every time it was run.

Because of that, I really think that faction missions like the ones above should be absent from all scenarios. The characters are supposed to be members of the Pathfinder Society, not traitors trying to bring it down for their faction.

One thing that another thread popped into my head was the question of if any of the deities had any husbands or wifes (besides Torag). A few seem to be a definite no (Calistria, Cayden Cailean, Shelyn) while a others seem like they would have found some being to spend their lives with. Like Erastil, I find it odd that, given his beliefs, that he hasn't been married. If he is, are they still alive?

I recently have been privileged to play in a scenario for Tier 1-2 with a 1st level character (and a band of the same level). Sadly, several of the encounters were quite difficult.

Throughout this, my biggest thought was of disbelief. I mean, I never thought that they would actually send these things to kill the party.

The issue seems to be that players assume that the game is going to be remotely fair to them. They don't expect to have the Tarrasque charging at them when they start on their mission without a way for them to escape or beat it.

I'm not sure what to do in scenarios I play in now. Should I run at the very first sign of trouble now? Because after this scenario, it feels as if I should make a coward that will ditch the party after the first round when something seems dangerous?

It would make me a complete jerk though, but that is the only way I think my character could have possibly survived this scenario.

The scenario faked me out by pretending to be appropriate for me character. It then stole my character from me because I trusted that the game would be balanced. I want to ask for my character back because if this is how it is, I will just accept the fact that PFS wants me to run from every encounter right when it seems dangerous. If a scenario is broken, there should be a better response than, "well I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do. Your character is dead."

I would like to ask if after a new clarification, errata, or removal of items from Chapter 13 in Guide to Society Play, what options are allowed for those players. What is allowed if a trait goes from legal to not after a guide revision? Can they pick a new trait? Things of that sort.

In my case, one of my regular PFS players has a 4th level monk with newly purchased +1 brass knuckles from Adventurer's Armory and, after a clarification, the damage for the character went from 1d8 to 1d3+1 (with a plus 1 to the attack). Following the correction, he will likely wish to know what options he has.

If he doesn't wish to keep them, does he have to sell them at only half price, or can he get a full refund following the clarification? Or is there some other option available to him?

I just wanted to confirm that in a multi-part scenario (specifically The Devil You Know series) whether you had to use the each player had to use the same character through all the parts, and that it wasn't an option for them to play with one character for the first scenario and with a second character for the rest.

I was just trying to plan my flight and was wondering if there was an estimate or time that the convention events were ended that I had missed.

I would like to confirm whether or not the Untrained restrictions on the 'Trained Only' skills applied to the checks required by Faction Missions.

For example, some mission might require a DC 15 Knowledge (nobility) to make a good impression on some nobles. While any character might be able to make a DC 15 Intelligence check, if the character is not trained in that Knowledge, they wouldn't be able to make the Knowledge check because it is not allowed for untrained characters.

The desire popped into my head recently to run a campaign on the planet Triaxus (of Golarion's system) that takes place over several hundred years with the players taking control of the descendants of the or characters. It would start in a more carefree time as the jungles flourish and eventually, as the group gets higher in level, will become a frozen land.

I'm pretty much set on humans being one of the major races in the area, but I am not decided on how I would describe their appearance or what names they would use.

I was wondering if there any ideas for the other civilized natives of the land. I am generally happy with elves, dwarves, and such, but for this game I would like to avoid them to make the world feel more like a different world.

Another question I have is to ask if there were any suggestions for the exact length of a Triaxus year as well as how it's orbit actually works.
Unless I missed something, a planet going getting as close as Venus and as far away as the gas giants would take about five Earth/Golarion years to make one trip around the Sun assuming an elliptical orbit (as opposed to hundreds of years.
Right now I am planning to describe Triaxus as having an very odd orbit where the gravity of the other planets of the system keep it from traveling the system at a "normal" pace, but I would love another suggestion how this planet works.

I was wondering who else here was going to run or otherwise participate in the upcoming Worldwide D&D Game Day or the Wednesday D&D Encounters?

In the previous version of the Summoner, the eidolon got an ability score boost every 4 Hit Dice (like all creatures that gain HD).

Now, in the current table, it still gets the ability score boosts at the same levels so it doesn't happen at every 4 Hit Dice anymore.

Something has been irritating me a while about the Monster Manuals for a while and I feel compelled to voice my dislike.

The amount of white space bugs me looking through the Monster Manuals. What I'm talking about are the empty sections in a column that show up at the bottom of many pages (Examples from MM: pg 128, pg. 138, pg. 200-201. Examples from MM2: pg. 34, pg. 71, pg. 120-121).

To me, the white space is less appealing than my least favorite art pieces in the books. I would prefer almost anything to the blank space, either more art or more text.

Of course, I'm not sure how reasonable those requests would be in the end, as both would increase the costs, but I want to assume that the costs would be minimal for something that I would think that would improve later Monster Manuals.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I thought now would be about the best time to post it rather than continue to sit on this and do nothing with it.

These are just my various things that I am considering adjusting or bringing into later 4e games I run with reasons I came up with them and would like to hear opinions on them or modifications I should make.

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I like magic items, but I dislike the complete the utter necessity of certain magic items. For example, if a high-level character loses their
high level weapon/implement, and they didn't happen to carry a spare in their bag, their effectiveness in battle drops to nearly nil.

House Rule, It is the Warrior that matters not the Weapon:
As characters increase in power, characters benefit as if they had magic items on them. At 6th level, characters get a +1 enhancement bonus to all defenses, attack rolls, and damage rolls (these do stack with enhancement bonuses from magic weapons). In addtion, for determining the extra damage from a critical, they can deal +1d6 damage instead of using the critical effect of their current magic weapon or implement. At 11th level and every 5 levels after, the enhancement bonus increases by +1 and the critical damage increase by +1d6.
If a power gains an additional +2 bonus for paragon or epic, like the Dragonborn's Dragon Breath, ignore those bonuses.

I think that this would have a minor increase in power and hopefully make more interesting choice for magic items. I'm not sure if that would be the result though.

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For me, neither the Bull Rush or Grab options are especially reasonable choices for players to attempt, their effects are superseded by other powers practically all of the time, making them used sporadically at best. To me, I think that unless I'm going for more damage, the warrior should be using bull rush to knock around foes, and currently, unless they focus a lot, the ability to push something one square while dealing no damage is a significant penalty.

Improved Bull Rush Attack | General Power
At-Will
Standard Action | Melee 1
Special: This power can be used in place of the basic attack at the end of a charge.
Target: One creature
Attack: Constitution vs. Fortitude
Increase to Constitution + 2 vs. Fortitude at 11th level, and to Constitution + 4 vs. Fortitude at 21st level.
Hit: 1d6 + Strength modifier damage, push the target up to a number of squares equal to your Strength modifier, and shift into the space they were in.
Increase damage to 2d6 + Strength modifier at 21st level.

Improved Grab Attack | General Power
At-Will
Standard Action | Melee 1
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. Reflex
Increase to Strength + 2 vs. Reflex at 11th level, and to Strength + 4 vs. Reflex at 21st level.
Hit: 1d6 + Strength modifier damage, and the target is immobilized until it escapes or until the end of your next turn.
Increase damage to 2d6 + Strength modifier at 21st level.
Sustain Minor: The immobilized condition persists and the target takes Strength modifier damage.

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I really do like Rogue's with options with more weapons. While I don't think they should be best with other weapons, I like to keep options open such that unarmed, with an axe, or a spear, a rogue is still viable.

Versatile Rogue
- Prerequisites: Rogue, Sneak Attack class feature
- Benefit: You can wield any weapon you are proficient with to deal Sneak Attack damage and to use rogue powers that require a light blade (you still cannot use throw weapons that don't have the light thrown or heavy thrown property, nor can you use a ranged weapon as a melee weapon). For weapons using this feat, reduce the Sneak Attack damage for one-handed weapons by one die and reduce the Sneak Attack damage for two-handed weapons by two dice. If the weapon has the off-hand property, reduce the damage from Sneak Attack by 1 instead.

I don't think it is more powerful than any single feat I've seen grant a similar ability. There are racial feats that do this for one specific weapon, but those are usually military weapons that the race is automatically proficient with and this does still require more energy to be spent on proficiency. If it works how I like, it should be as good as those feats and make additional similar feats unnecessary for my game.

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Overall, I feel that the books tend not to favor many using ranged weapons, off-hand, from the Player's Handbook and Player's Handbook 2 the only classes that have any support for the ranged weapons for powers that use them are the Ranger and the Rogue (who is limited to the crossbows and light blades). While these options are reasonable options most of the time, there are times that I want to play a Cleric, Fighter, or Paladin with a ranged weapon and I find the current options for supporting this to be lacking. I have no issue with a class being better with one type of weapons, but I still like having the other option available.

Point Blank Archer
- Benefit: When wielding a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can make attacks with it as if it were a melee weapon with the Reach property.

Using this doesn't change the role the Fighter plays. He gets no exceptional abilities at any range, he still works best by being right next to his enemies in order to pin them down and he still uses Strength-based attacks (just with a bow). In this case the bow wielding Fighter could still multi-class into Ranger and have the advantage of having Fighter powers for melee and Ranger powers for long range.

Compared to Opportunistic Archer from Martial Power, I would say that my suggested feat is exceptionally more powerful, but that doesn't really say much as Opportunistic Archer is extremely weak in allowing you to actually use it and the benefit is not exceptional to begin with.

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One of my favorite things is terrain, when used I believe it really creates a positive influence during a battle. However, one issue I do have with terrain is that most people I have been playing with have been treating the terrain as a bad thing, preferring to often just stay away if they can take any sort of defensive position, and have been considering it to be an immutable object. I think this is part due to the limited phrasing of most terrain. For example, a set of plant life around the ground may be poisonous to those who travel though it and would list effects on creature that pass by, it will be less likely to informing one how easy it is for a player to set fire to it or cut it down.

The system I would like is to be able to use skills to alter the terrain. From a Wizard setting fire to dangerous terrain to a Barbarian ripping a pillar from the ground and using it as a very long reach weapon against that annoying flying creature. I would like to have some idea how I want to react to any suggestion they want to attempt. I know that I want to set benchmarks for what a certain DC should effect, but I'm not sure of much more than that.

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I can see that what some people mean when they say that monster attack bonuses and defenses scale faster than the player's own numbers, but I'm not sure if I like either the way masterwork armors or feats with exceptionally large bonuses solve the issue.

Instead I'm considering a system where characters get magic item-like abilities every few levels to augment the characters offenses and defenses. Granting resistances to psychic damage, ability to deal fire damage instead your normal type, or the ability to resist the effects of being dominated. This could be used in a game with less magical items as well.

So far all I imagine for this is that there would be the option to pick a new ability every few levels, and abilities would scale and could have prerequisites based on level, class, race, or build. Given the number of options I would imagine this would need, this has fallen by the wayside in preference for simpler to implement changes.

I'm currently a player in my 4e group, but I will be shifting back into the GM's seat within a few weeks. So I will likely have to deal with this power the party's Invoker revealed the newest ability that she had gained from channeling her deity's power.

She conjured a flag onto the field and announced that everyone within line of sight to it would get a +7 to all defenses as long as she sustained it.

My immediate reaction was disbelief and a request to see the power since this would render all of the attacks against us useless. The power is "Pennant of Heaven's Armies" [Invoker Utility 16, from Divine Power] and that is exactly what it says (plus a bit more).

So, lacking official errata, I'm wondering how to deal with it without being heavy handed. What tactics I can use in any combat without making it so her power isn't rendered completely useless or make it seem as if every enemy seems to be aware of her ability. I could also reduce the power of the ability (by reducing the bonus, reducing how easy it is to use, reducing who is affected by it, or just even naming the bonus rather than leave it unnamed), but I'm not exactly sure where to reduce it to.

The answer I have to it right now is to just go after the fact that it only provides allies the bonus and focus all the enemies attacks on her. Even then, I'm not sure how effective that would be with the rest of the party around to defend her.

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And to try and counter any of the down-ed-ness of the post, a quick comment about one of the rounds of the battle that I found entertaining.

I was playing a Dwarven Warden eschewing the bonuses from the pennant (to give the DM a reasonable target to hit) and was surrounded on all sides by murderous goblins, vicious humans, and cackling gnolls.

Seeing the opportunity for carnage, the party's own goblin artificer dropped one of his bombs right into the space I was standing to strike all the enemies at once. It didn't detonate then, the timer needed to wind down or it needed to be struck for that to happen.

That was when the Sorcerer came in, also seeing the opportunity, he threw his magic explosion of lightning centered on me. It struck me along with several of the enemies and it connected with the bomb as well. The bomb then exploded also hitting me and several of the enemies.

It had seemed that this round, my own allies were as great a threat to my life as the enemies I was facing.

I felt very grateful for when it came to the Deva Invoker's turn, because, he player turned to me and asked, "Are you bloodied?" I was happy that someone in the party was thinking of my welfare and that she would expend some ability to my wounds. I answered yes happily.

She responded somewhat gleefully, "Good, I get a bonus to damage!"

My head hit the table.

A little way back I made a number of monsters as I sent my party against menacing Metal Men following me getting a bit into thinking about running adventures in Golarion's Numeria. I just ended up inputing them into my computer and decided to post them here before I forgot about them. I was reasonably happy with them (although I really don't like the wording on the Veenin's grenade related abilities), but I would still love to hear if there is something I could or should do to improve them.

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Zerun | Level 10 Soldier
Medium Natural Animate | XP 500
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +7; darkvision
HP 104; Bloodied 52
AC 26; Fortitude 23, Reflex 22, Will 20
Speed 6
M Slam (Standard; at-will) * Force
+17 vs. AC; 1d8+5 force damage, and slide target 2 squares.
r Force Cannon (Standard; at-will) * Force
Ranged 5; +15 vs. Fortitude; 1d6+5 force damage, and push target 2 squares and knock them prone.
c Gravity Pull (Standard; recharge 56) * Force
Close burst 2; +15 vs. Fortitude; 1d8+5 force damage, and pull target up to 2 squares.
Alignment Neutral Languages Common, Hallit
Skills Athletics +15
Str 21 (+10) Dex 8 (+4) Wis 14 (+7)
Con 16 (+8) Int 18 (+9) Cha 11 (+5)

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Veenin | Level 12 Artillery
Medium Natural Animate | XP 700
Initiative +6 Senses Perception +10; darkvision
HP 95; Bloodied 47
AC 24; Fortitude 23, Reflex 26, Will 24
Speed 6
M Slam (Standard; at-will)
+19 vs. AC; 1d8+6 damage
r Crystallizing Ray (Standard; at-will) * Cold
Ranged 10; +17 vs. Fortitude; 1d8+6 cold damage, and the target is slowed (save ends). First Failed Save: The target is immobilized instead of slowed (save ends). Second Failed Save: The target is petrified (no save).
c Lightning Cannon (Standard; recharge 456) * Lightning
Close blast 5; +15 vs. Reflex; 4d8+6 lightning damage.
r Launch Grenade (Standard; when you have no active grenade recharge 6) * Conjuration
Ranged 10; +17 vs. Reflex; 1d8+6 damage, and a grenade appears in single space occupied by the target and is attached to them. As long as the grenade is attached to the target, it moves with them. The target can use the escape action to break free (vs. the grenade's defenses). Miss: The grenade is placed in a square occupied by the target, but is unattached. Effect: This effect does not end if the grenade leaves the Veenin's range. The Veenin can end this effect and destroy the grenade as a minor action.
Detonate Grenade (Standard; at-will, requires grenade) * Fire
Make the following attack centered on the Veenin's grenade within 10 squares. Burst 5; +15 vs. Reflex (automatic hit and crit on target attached to grenade); 4d8+6 fire damage. Miss: Half damage.
Alignment Neutral Languages Common, Hallit
Str 14 (+8) Dex 11 (+6) Wis 19 (+10)
Con 17 (+9) Int 22 (+12) Cha 12 (+7)

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Zununes | Level 16 Skirmisher (Leader)
Medium Natural Animate | XP 1,400
Initiative +12 Senses Perception +13; darkvision
HP 157; Bloodied 78
AC 30; Fortitude 27, Reflex 29, Will 27
Speed 8, teleport 6
M Dagger (Standard; at-will) * Weapon
+21 vs. AC; 2d4+7 damage, and ongoing 5 damage and target takes a -2 penalty on saving throws (save ends both).
R Dagger (Standard; at-will) * Weapon
Ranged 5/10; +21 vs AC; 2d4+7 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends).
Phasing Blade (Standard; at-will)
The Zununes makes a basic attack, teleports adjacent to the target of the attack, and can make another basic attack.
Site-to-Site Teleportation (Minor; recharge 56)
The Zununas teleports an ally within 10 squares to any other unoccupied square within 10 squares.
Alignment Neutral Languages Common, Hallit
Str 16 (+11) Dex 15 (+10) Wis 21 (+13)
Con 21 (+13) Int 24 (+15) Cha 14 (+10)
Equipment 8 daggers

Slorp slorp slorp

I’ve been playing with different terrain effects in my games to see how they interact with the PCs and the monsters within a battle. I have been trying to make the combats feel more in line with the their tier by adding new and more fantastic terrain features, these are a few of the ones I have used.

Slope: Acts as difficult terrain, but only going up the slope. Had a bit of an effect, but was about as interesting as difficult terrain in that single combat I used it. The terrain kept the ranged characters relatively close to the bottom of the pit, which was what I wanted.
Damaging Terrain: A creature takes 5 damage of a certain type per tier when they enter or start their turn in this square. I have generally liked this sort of terrain in my combats when wielding monsters capable of forcing the party into them. The party also has been enjoying them for throwing enemies into them and using fighter abilities to hold them there. They tended to make a bit more motion as creatures move out of the terrain and shove their enemies into it.
Warped Space: It costs no movement to enter or be forced through (push, pull, slide) a square of this terrain. Another interesting terrain. I considered having it affect power ranges, bursts, and blasts, but I thought that might be getting way too complicated as the party would be doing a lot more thinking of where to position those effects. The party and I had a lot of fun with this one, managing to pull off a number of silly tricks in combat. This also caused a lot more movement to occur on the areas near this terrain as creatures used it to make quick jumps to out maneuver the adversaries. There were some issues with not counting the squares in movement however, it seems I and others got into the habit of counting out each square. It got much easier when people began just sliding their figures across this areas rather than moving the figure 1 square at a time. (Although it became a bit less mystical in my mind when the party rogue used the areas to aid him in spending his last turn to take a victory lap around the battlefield.)

Has anyone else made any interesting terrain features or suggestions for modifying my terrain features?

I can see it in his avatar's eyes!

Help!

While I am fine with assassins without spells, I like the idea of them having the choice between having spells or some other ability, similar to the spell-less ranger variants out there.

Here are a few of my idea of what this ability or chain of abilities might be.

Grant a bonus on a skill check involving the target for a period of time after examining them for three rounds (which is necessary to perform a death attack). Disguise checks when disguise yourself as the target, survival checks to track the target, perception checks to detect the target, and so on.

Abilities that grant a specific boon on one attack against a target made before the end of the assassin’s next turn if they spend a standard action to examine the target (even in battle). Attack the target’s touch AC, leave a blow that continues to bleed, deal extra damage on the hit, a bonus on a combat maneuver used against the target