Jai Salzwedel's page

Just so you know, this is the first encounter I plan to use in my brand new fourth edition campaign. It'll be adapted, of course, but the read-aloud text from the goblin charge is going in word for word. Sheer awesomeness.

Wow, great job. My one problem: how can someone swing from one leaf to a higher leaf? Doesn't conservation of energy kinda rule that out? All your entry states is that they need to swing for a certain distance. Shouldn't they need some sort of running start (so they can start out with some extra kinetic energy that will transfer into potential energy)? Otherwise, they will never get any higher than they started.

The absolute best part of the haemogoblins was the name. Rather than some random fantasy name, it's a name that gets to the heart of the creature. That said, I was a bit disappointed to learn that the creature wasn't actually a goblin. I may have to adapt some of its abilities (and of course the name) for a species of goblins in my game. I thought the worst part about them was the PC hook:

DM: "Next to the table of mystic amulets is a barrel full of large, oddly colored eggs."
Party Wizard: "What's in that barrel, sir merchant man?"
SMM: "Haemogoblin eggs."
Party Wizard: "I have no idea what that is. Ummm, can you point me in the direction of someone with a wand of fireballs?"
DM: *Throws away adventure hinging off that plot hook*

And I have to agree with the others that the Bloodless doesn't have much use as a monster unless you have the PCs working side by side with a Decrier. Lastly, I must say that you struck a chord with the Decrier. I'm a sucker for shades of gray, and a monster that does evil things and hates himself for it, even goes out of his way to seek his own demise, wins points for me.

I'd say he's a good all-around villain. Only place he hurts is in combat. Let's face it. Ogre-magi can't fight. Their already over-inflated CR means that no matter what class levels you add, the guy is going to be underpowered. The only thing they can do competently is run away (thanks to invisibility and flight), though that's useful for a villain. At least you were able to use the non-associated class levels to get more hit points. Classed ogre-magi simply have no damage potential outside their cone of cold. Look at the above tactics. Cone, invisibility, true strike, scorching ray. That's three rounds between dealing damage. In that time, the party's healed to full, summoned a greater elemental, and tossed out a couple area of effect spells (at least one of which hit our villain). He'll obviously need the Practiced Spellcaster feat (+4 to CL) to make his scorching rays do an average of 28 damage per round, rather than 14 (though you couldn't have written that into the stat block with the SRD limitation). Good thing a villain has minions.

This isn't a mark against you. It's a mark against Ogre-Magi.

This villain is amazing. I went to bed thinking about her last night, and when I woke up, I had my next campaign planned out. First of all, she's a real (crazy) person. She's not some boring demon that kills for the sake of killing, or your run-of-the-mill drow trying to reconquer the surface world. She's a human being with human emotions, and she's got a painful history driving her actions. The name is great. Henrietta Miller is exactly the kind of name I'd expect to hear in an old medieval town, and "Hetty" perfectly evokes the "everyone's favorite fat midwife/family doctor" imagery.

The one mark against her: combat. "If faced with more than two opponents, she will flee." Except for the occasional rogue who might be scouting ahead, when is she ever going to come up against fewer than four or five adventurers? That said, flight is definitely her course of action, and frankly, if she wants to be a villain, she needs to stay alive for more than one encounter. Besides, she won't always be fighting alone. She's got a small army of five year old rogues and warriors (who spend most of the day out stealing food for brothers and sisters) to fight for her. And there's that latent sorcerer that ancientsensei mentioned. Perhaps the child discovers his magical ability while throwing a tantrum over the "mean people hurting mommy!" Oh, the kids. Beautiful moral ambiguity. The party's going to have to a few difficult decisions there.

This has my vote without a doubt.

Look, I really don't think it has much to do with Wizards. My guess is that this is a Hasbro move. D&D makes about $10-$15 million a year for Hasbro (and that number may even be gross intake rather than profit - I'm not sure). Magic brings in over $100 million for Hasbro a year. Nothing else that Wizards sells makes anything for Hasbro. For the most part, Hasbro doesn't care about the products Wizard makes. As a big corporation all they are (rightfully) concerned about is what makes money for the company. And Dragon and Dungeon magazines don't. They are only a small part of that 10-15 mil, and, sadly, they just aren't worth the time for Hasbro to think about. I'm sure the people at Wizards love the magazines as much as everyone else here does. The situation is just out of their hands.