Michael Brisbois's page

See the article here: Bryant

Comments on the paper?

Although, to be fair, this isn't actually an "academic" essay. It's a symposium, which means it's essential a short opinion bit approved by the editorial of the journal. Kudos for Professor Bryant for raising the issue and possibly inspiring more research. I'd love to do up an essay on the topic as well, but sadly, this summer's writing is very well spoken for.

I'm concerned about the requirement to use the latest exhibits, and specifically Paizo's right to update Exhibit B. Under a draconian (but not unreasonable) interpretation, an update to Exhibit B could, even if Paizo added resources to Exhibit B, require update of existing products to bring them into compliance.

Similarly, removal of resources from Exhibit B would (unquestionably) cause previously compliant product to become non-compliant.

The license's specificity in requiring compliance with the 'current' Exhibit B is clear. Unfortunately, this is a moving target. Complying with a moving target is hard.

I am certain that the current management and company wholeheartedly supports the openness of the this license, and the greater community they hope to build. But management and corporate direction change - one needs only glance at the absurd license currently offered by Hasbro for their RPG system to realize they have since changed corporate direction.

I applaud the remainder of this license as reasonable and fair (and immensely so). I cannot, however, trust the requirements around Exhibit B sufficiently to commit resource or recommend committing resource to this license.

Malachite Ice

OK, first off, now your villain is a "shadow protector"? This is a villain, not an NPC.

I haven't used it, but it is the most forgettable of Wizards new magic theories, IMHO

Apparently some people disagree with the dictionary's assessment. Link

Michael Brisbois wrote:

aylengyr wrote:

Ah the joy of new business models, I think every monster in the monster manual should be printed up separately in their own $40 book. Think of the possibilities! Man I think that's awesome don't you?

While it wasn't $40.00 US, isn't the "business model" you deride above similar to Classic Monsters Revisited?

Exactly, was about to say the same thing. But you forget that it's ok because Paizo = God. WoTC = Satan. As long as we keep that in mind then everything sorta sorts itself out ;p

Ah the joy of new business models, I think every monster in the monster manual should be printed up separately in their own $40 book. Think of the possibilities! Man I think that's awesome don't you?

Wizards pulled the plug on DDM with little or no warning to its players, canceling future product releases and, frankly, causing some financial hardship for a friend of mine who resells DDM singles.

4E is not protected by something like the OGL. If WotC has already shown that it can and will cancel games without warning, what does that say for the future of the D&D brand (and 4E)?

For that matter, what's to stop any business from suddenly not supporting a product? Some go out of business, some are unable to maintain funds--look at the big banks and loan providers who just went under less than a month ago.

I think the OP contains a bit of fearmongering and some unreasonable expectations about how businesses work and expresses a large amount of entitlement-syndrome. Remember, Paizo could suddenly experience a capital shortfall and go under (I hope not!). If they suddenly stopped producing Pathfinder, wouldn't their world be just as "unprotected" as the DDM sets are?

More looking for how usefull a screen it is for 4e and how glaring the errors are... An Errate for a DM screen?....

My friend DMed us in a Waterdeep campaign for a few years.
He played a cleric of Mystra in Living Ravens Bluff, till it was destroyed.

He looked at the new version in the bookstore.
Apparently Mystra was killed, didn't see it coming, and didn't have her godhood transfer to a ready new vessel.
It seems whoever created the new version knew nothing of the Forgotten Realms.
All the important characters moved away, died, or retired.
With no chosen of Mystra, and no real differences between FR and POL there's no point to it.
The one good thing about the new source book is there are maps.

Also, I can't help but point out that the people who worked on the new setting are all long standing Realms writers, including Greenwood and Salvatore, who are obstenibly the most important. Only Sean K Reynolds is the one writer I think should have been paid his weight in gold to work on the book...sorry I don't have it on hand to check the credits...

So...is chess unbalanced, or full of meaningless choices?

Polaris is dead on. This is why decks of playing cards work the way they do--a random range creates an unbalanced set of hands. Same with TCGs. Magic: The Gathering has prospered by maintaining a solid mix of optimal:average:suboptimal cards. Same with L5R.

Game balance is often an illusion, and RPGs rely upon a sense of cooperation between players and between the DM and players to guide the balance of a game. That's why a group can play a fun low magic D&D game, and the group next door can Monty Haul it up.

Four sessions to full proficiency seems good for a RPG. That was about the time my players started to work out combos (one of my favorites is the rogues Set-up Strike, Action Point, Sly Flourish sequence which is great).

One of the nice things is that with only a little effort on the DMs part, everyone get proficient about the same time, rather than the casual players getting left behind...although there are still clear benefits to being an involved player.

The trickiness of comparing abilities is something I find works out well in 4e. I like the division of attack and utility powers. This way characters always have a relatively equal and wide range of combat options and non-combat options. Sure, a lot of utilities work in combat, but generally only to assist the PC or an ally and don't do damage directly. The mix of combat-non-combat powers in other games can be a bit dodgy (say, a wizard vs. a companion in Ars Magica, although that is the admitted goal of that game).

Lightning Lure while great, has a fairly short range of 3. I have been playing a Swordmage for 3 levels now, and I have never ran away from a squishy, nor have I ever gotten to use my defender ability. :( Everytime I think I will get an opportunity to use it the monster dies. I stay up front with a fighter and I play off tank and move around to set up opportunities to use the ability while being another line of defense in front of the squishes.

On a side not, I am using a Glaive since it is considered a sword type weapon, and I love the reach on this character.

If their response to this class is unrestricted glee, then the spiral of ever increasing power in classes seems to have started disappointingly early.

I wonder if there any "permanent" reagents. Something that has the same effect as a black pearl, maybe daily or an encounter use, but isn't consumed. It would have to fill a slot for balance I would imagine.

So, yeah, if you're into the character building, 4E won't be your cup o joe.

The point being any game limited to its core book(s) is limiting. Or on the other hand, freeing in the sense that your imagination does the work...that's in part why I stopped using a lot of supplements in 3e and part of why I'm enjoying 4e. I'm looking forward to Adventurer's Vault though, as there's far too many arms and armors in the PH and too few potions and wondrous items.

As an aside, this was a very polite conversation before some disruptions above. Could we avoid such things? I'd be interesting on hearing how people are speeding up their games and if DMs currently running 4e games have any interesting experiences they'd like to share.

Admittedly, the character sheets were a big fumble, but I didn't by them anyway. Wizards really hasn't put out a good set of sheets since the orginal 3e sheets in 2000, which were nice. I have no clue as to why WotC can't get a good sheet made when so many fans seem to whip one up...anyway, I tended to house rule 3e around so much it didn't matter, and I like having setting themed sheets anyway.

The DM screen however, is excellent. I'm pleased with that purchase and even more pleased by the speed with which WotC errated one small section. The pdf they provided was a very quick fix. I'm pretty neutral about the art and the info is laid out logically.

One thing I have noticed is how responsive WotC has been about products. Players complained about "setting-like" feats like "Golden Wyvern Adept" and they were dropped from the PH. Player's complained about the cover of the 4e PH, so they got a new cover (neither cover was/is good in my opinion, but not for the reason player's complained about). Back when Eberron was released a lot of players complained about the mixture of DM knowledge and player knowledge. Now all setting books are being divided into a DM-book and a Player-book. That's good news. Now, I don't use their settings, but it seems that they are responsive...And the product seems a bit better. I bought 2 3.5 books beyond the core and some setting material for the Eberron game I ran (MMIII and Heroes of Battle), but I thought very little of WotC's offerings from around 2004-2008. The 4e material seems to be stronger, with more clarity and room for individual DMs to do their thing.

The problem with power cards is that they seem to make people forget about their other options (grapple, bull rush, environmental interaction, etc)...but maybe that's just my crew.

Each character has a checklist of all the special options they can do, such as their powers, class abilities (hunter's quarry, etc), and general combat options (action point, second wind, trip, etc) and when they use the option they check it off. If they get to 5 different options used in a linked combat, or 8 in an isolated one, they add a small XP bonus to the encounter. At first there were cries of "more bookkeeping!" but after last session they all agreed it helped them get a sense of the game and reminded them to use the special magic item powers they had. One PC managed to get up to 4 different checks in a round (hunter's quarry for minor, move, Shadowwasp Strike for standard, use Elven Accuracy to avoid a miss (free), activate weapon power (free) (fear attack; even better because the weapon is called the waspblade and hums like a wasp and themes nicely with the special attack). I still think she should have blown an action point and used another attack, but the PC was excited, and she's a reliable, long-running casual player.

My question for you, because I have not had the opportunity to play 4E as much as I would have liked, is ... do the battles get LONGER as you level up, or does the timing remain about the same? I would expect as the lethality of the attacks vs. the increased efficiency of the defense would leave the timing about the same across the board, regardless of the level played at, but what has been your experience?

I whipped up a Dark One Master Spy to be a solo encounter. He was a hit-and-run assassin who could generate fields of darkness (adding a bit of controller instead of just increasing his ability to attack). He was great, effective in paralysing the party's heavy hitters by remaining hidden, trapping PCs in darkness, and attacking from the shadows. It took a while for the PCs to take him down, and they had to regroup at one point and seriously considered retreat as an option.

For better or for worse, the wizards attempts to use Thunderwave to blast him out of his darkness field kepts failing, but it was a sound plan (darned luck o' the dice). They eventually took to hurling lit oil canisters into the field he was currently hiding in. We randomized the hit locations as that seemed most fair, but it did force him out of the field and into the waiting swords of the ranger and paladin. Of course, with classic tradecraft, the Master Spy killed himself rather than be captured. But the battle went very well.

My experience is that combat move swiftly after the first few games. The rounds are much shorter and as the players learn the game, their characters, and the capabilities of the party it really smoothes out.

To this end, I designed our first two adventures to be short, without too much linked combat. This allowed the players to digest their new round-to-round options. My more casual players have taken a while to adjust to the new options becuase there are simply more of them. The shorter adventures also allowed me to learn how to design encounters in 4e better. It really made me realize how encounter design is more prosaic, that is, benefiting from a mixture of monster roles.

After those two adventures, we proceeded into a longer one, with a more extensive "dungeon." I deliberately used goblins as a classic villain and found we can move quite quickly through encounters. Some battles take longer than others, but what I find rewarding is that I have been able to reliably design them as such--smaller, lighter encounters go fast, while the major set-piece battles are satisfyingly difficult. From a narrative point of view, there's less randomness in how an encounter goes and I can build up tension nicely. I also find the overall pacing of an adventure's action sequences go well. Depending on the pace I've set, we can get through 4-6 battles in a combat heavy night and with a normal 3 hour session.

This week we played a 2.5 hour session, in which 1.25 hour was just straight RP between the PCs and NPCs, as well as travelouge details. The two combats were: a battle against 13 bandits on the road, which lasted two rounds while the PCs used a combination of skills (Intimidate, mostly) and well-placed strikes (the rogue and wizard proving very effective) to cow the ruffians; and a second battle against an Oni Night Haunter--a battle I deliberately wanted to be tough. The fight lasted 9 or 10 rounds, flowed around the battlefield nicely, saw PCs being knocked unconscious (one even suffered the Oni's powerful Devour Soul power), and was generally an awesome, big encounter. I estimate the bandits took about .5 of an hour (mostly due to pre-attack planning--the cleric wanted to intimidate, the wizard just wanted to charge), and the Oni took .75/hour. I consider this reasonable.

I've finished the next major dungeon, and am excited about running it. I've also prepared my first mega-adventure, or at least mega-to-my-mind, that will take the PCs from 6th to 10th level. It's going to be a lot of fun!

Hi there,

I don't mean to be a smart ass, but just reading the blog entry of July 8 left a "bad aftertaste" for me: I know it's fiction and I know that you folks on the other side of the pond make more carefree use of that part of history - but quoting from part of the anthem used by the nazis feels really odd to me...

Kr,
Günther

P.S.: Über Alles! = supreme over everything.
Don't have to mention which "faction" was inserted in real history, do I?

etrigan wrote:

Tatterdemalion wrote:

A cut above, yes. But 4e has gone well beyond that. You couldn't create a Chapter 1 Sam Gamgee with the current rules.

And how exactly do you propose to create this character with a heroic class in 3.5E or Pathfinder RPG? Does he look like a Fighter or a rogue level 1 to you?

Expert 1, I'd say. No NPC classes in 4E as I understand it. ;-)

Let's take a look at the history:

1974 (D&D Original)
1977–79 (AD&D 1st Edition)
1989 (AD&D 2nd Edition)
2000 (D&D 3rd Edition)
2003 (D&D v.3.5)
2008

So when WotC took over, we went from over a decade between versions to releasing 2 new versions in 8 years. That alone is enough to alienate many players and make them feel like WotC is just trying to pad their pocketbooks.

And that, I think, we can all agree is a valid argument.

One thing to bear in mind is how easy it is to lower or increase the example monsters (details are in the DMG, in the DM's Toolbox chapter). One of the monsters I wanted to use for the first session was level 8 in the MM, but 5 minutes later I had level 3 version ready to go.

Aaron Goddard wrote:

And changing fly to a skill?
All I have to say to that is Javhol mein fuher!

And NO I am NOT a troll, this is really what I believe.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Godwin's Law.

And I don't care what you are. Statements like the above have no place in discussion, comrade. (Note, the subtle weaving of irony into... wait, did I say subtle? ;-p )

Or the weapon tables list the most common way of damaging an opponent with the weapon: you can stab (pierce) with a longsword, and you can slash with a shortsword, or dagger. A warhammer usually had a spike or claw on the secondary end that was used to pierce a foes vitals and chinks after the foe was knocked down.

While a few weapons--halberd, for example--list two kinds of damage, the system would be overly complex if every weapon had multiple damage types. Instead, a DM is able to easily adjudicate variant uses of a weapon. I recommend following the "Improvising Weapon" rule, but might be tempted to lessen the penalty to -2 becuase the weapon is not entirely improvised, just being used outside of its normal range of use.

Convince Mike Mearls to contribute the chapters on combat and skills.

Wow, this is excellent. Please bring in the feats from BoXM I and II, the fighting domains, and the 20-level spell system. We've been using the BoXM spell progression for a month now, and it is simply great. And backward compatable with no work on the part of the DM...

"] How can I reasonably get rid of the goblin? I've already had it try to run away; they stopped it.

Goblins are a bit tricky, as they aren't citizens of Magnimar...summary execution might not be a issue. My players did catch and interrogate a goblin in town, but I stressed how violent and feral he was. Some of the players tried to befriend him, but again, the townsfolk didn't want the little monster around town after the first attack--so, public execution. If you want to get really realistic, it might be appropriate to crow-cage the little beast, or hang his corpse as a message.

Curse of Bloodsworn Vale is pretty darn good. It has a 'timeline' approach to most main encounters, and involves a fair deal of adventuring and exploring.

This makes me laugh.

- secrecy is a necessity in business.

Frankly, I lie more: 'really, I didn't buy a new gaming rulebook sweetheart'.

Jason: "I have this thing I've been fiddlin' with"

P.B.P.: "Run with it, we may need it"

As always, the person in the right place at the right time takes the prize. I'm an academic (English) and we often see interesting conferences and call-for-papers that journals put out. Being able to respond depends entirely upon what you might have written in your draw--of-essay.

Iterative attacks are vital to 3e's balance, you have to redo all the monsters to work with SWS/4e style single attacks.

The other option is to say, damn Monster/NPC/PC equity and just allow high level monsters iterative attacks and deny it to class-based monsters, NPCs, and PCs.

Ultimately though, I don't see changing this to be in Paizo's interests (it also belies a problem: ask 10 different DMs what's need to "fix" 3e, you'll get 10 different responses. It's probably best to make minor changes to 3.5 and then let people house-rule away).

Did anyone defeat the black dragon at D&D XP? How did you do it?

If Player Bob wants to play a Paladin, and they aren't available, Bob is denied his 'fun.' If Player Bob wants to play an Errol Flynn-esque swashbuckling Rogue who draws his initials in the air with his Rapier, or a woodsy sort of scout who plinks people with a Shortbow from the forest canopy, he can't, and, again, Bob is denied his 'fun.'

Malhavoc Press's Book of Hollowed Might II has some brilliant rules on crafting masterwork/masterpiece items, not only as bonuses to hit, but for special qualities (bonus to Cha, maybe to sunder...I can't recall right now). Still, I recommend checking it our.

And by the way, I know it must have been tough to push through Erik's constant language barrier advice, but you did it. YOU DID IT. And you're a pretty phenominal writer in your second language. You know who else was like that?

Nabokov.

Vladmir.

Yeah.

*claps hands, slowly, in hopes of starting clap fire*

Joseph.

*claps hands*

I think, for me, the height change is fine, not for reasons of strength, but for reach and distance. Distance, and the crossing of distance, is a defining moment in combat, and quite simply, a 3-foot humanoid with a sword rushing a 5'8" humanoid with a sword is going to get hit far earlier and more often. One of my players used to joke about Valenar elves in Eberron going on "The Great Halfling Hunt!"

As far as the Tolkien connection, I have never been convinced of D&D's reliance or even the "influence" of Tolkien's work on the game. I think the aesthetic of Tolkien has been used, but none of his ideas and concept have been a common thread--even with a noted scholar like John D. Rateliff working for TSR. There is a similar disconnect with the supposed influence Tolkien has had on the "epic fantasy" model, I see little Tolkien in his supposed predecessors (although I do in a few, Guy Gavriel Kay, for example), just an mimicking of surface, or aesthetic conventions. Tolkien belongs to a tradition that precedes him, rather than one that realistically follows him.

YES! I HATES THE BATTLEMATS! HATES THEM! FOREVER!

(All color! No need mechanics for these flavorful descriptions!).

I'm concerned about the growing "rules" around terrain and such...I like a lot of the premises in Iron Heroes or the Book of Iron Might, but I don't need rules to adjudicate the stunts, just common sense and a will to have the PCs kick ass (and my villains, too!)

at the time of writing, he probably would have have got a post-it saying something like "PCs who are sinful should get bonuses/penalties in the appropriate dungeon sections", and worked it out himself from here... but I found it a little jarring from what I had imagined it would be... I was expecting some kind of mechanic that added points to the DC of traps, spells etc in the appropriate section based on how many "sin points" the PC had in that "sin area", and if a PC was exceptionally pure, and had 0 (or maybe negative, I wasn't sure) points in a particular sin, they might be able to ignore the trap or spell entirely, meaning that particularly Zen monks might be able to ignore effects of traps in areas like Wrath, for example.

There's been a lot of discussion here and there about the correlation, or lack thereof, between the Virtues of Rule, the Mortal Sins, the modern virtues, the schools of magic associated with whichever, and the runeforged weapon qualities.

Most of it seems to center around people not understanding how it could work the way it's set out in the Path, why these two sins should oppose this one, why Enchantment for Fertility/Lust, and so forth. People want to change it so it makes sense.

Here's the thing: it doesn't have to. And I don't even mean "because it's magic."

The issue here becomes one of epistemology, not ontology, which suggests that there may be variances, but the Thassilonian (sp?) system should be coherent. But this, after all, D&D...coherence is not its specialty--adventure is!

because they think sin-forged weapons are going to be bad for them.

They are not the PCs' default moral virtues by any means, which should be interesting roleplaying fodder.

Mary

I did two things to circumvent this problem in taste: first, I've had all of the PCs come into contact with runic magic somehow (two planetouched have been having dreams and are having rune-like markings emerge on their hands, the wizard suffered a critical hit by a matriarch to her eye and the pupil changed to a runic shape, and one character has a brace of daggers that was given to him by a romantic interest (the daggers hilts are carved to represent the four seasons, and their spontaneously become magic...i.e. the DM is turning them slowly into runeforged weapons).

Second, I'll be redrafting the forging of rune weapons to be based on a reconsecration of the runeforge. The cleric character gets to feel awesome and everyone gets suped-up items, so they'll be happy.

I personally think revealing a bit more in HMM is good. I've tried running three APs now: Age of Worms transmuted into an entirely different storyline (though similar) and Savage Tide ended early on a satisfactory conclusion, but one I wrote myself. The RotRL is the first that has been working out for me, in part because the adventures have been so well done, and because work has kept me so busy (curse you, Candidacy exams!). I've been thinking about what would make APs work better, and the best idea I've had has been a brief DMs guide to the major NPCs...no stats, but a list of the major plot-related NPCs.

If the preview gives away the "defeat" of the Runelord, you can always have him win! My PCs are half way through HMM and, thanks to a very effective use of stealth and strategy, have managed to capture and interrogate several foes (while Zone of Truth bounces off a few NPCs, Discern Lies doesn't...good players!) and I decided to add in a few wildly threatening statements by the NPCs as to the identity of the final villian...I just watched Legend again with my son, and it really confirmed the effectiveness of the partially obscured, but still super threatenuing Big Bad. The big reveal of a mastermind only works when the mastermind is unassuming. The BBEG of RotRL isn't. He's a dark lord style figure and needs to be a looming spectre and someone the PCs already fear. In fact, PCs seem to respond best to big bads who show up earlish in a campaign, wreck the party (maybe kill a one or two characters--TPKs are no fun cause no one is left to spread the fear) and then leave, haunting the players and the characters nightmares. That is hard to pull off in published adventures, but if the PCs don't handle AP six well, and the BB walks away, I've got a back-up plan.

I can see this guys returning to cause trouble numerous times, either to forward plans for conquest or to repay the PCs for an earlier defeat. I am not a big fan of undersea play, but in this case it is evocative to think of the players (eventually) planning a counterattack against their old foe, who has a convinient escape route in the ocean...

Honestly, while this is more encounter-ish than most, a lot of this round's entries strike me as more "bad guy" and less "villain"--there is a lot of Grand Moff Tarkin and Boba Fett instead of Darth Vader (or a lot of Blastarr and Doomsday instead of Doctor Doom and Lex Luthor to switch genres/mediums).

I think the main problem the authors encountered here is the focus on getting the stat block together. I might be a bit odd, but even when I read new monsters, I look at the stat block last. The picture and the description sell me on the creature, NPC, or in this case the villain, not the stat block. Without a graphic picture to help, putting the stat-block up front really mutes the excitment a character can create. Now, not every entry failed to provide a strong lead, or to create a villain, and I think this entry has merit as an example of what should have been done more. If it was a bit more villainous, it would have been a sure-thing. But before you dismiss this work, consider how many of the other entries are "bad guys" that would exist within the context of a single adventure or theme, instead of being "villains" who can hinge repeated, and varied, encounters or levels (do you see these NPCs as something that can evolve and grow with the PCs, which is something a villain should have done).

On top of that, I have a major plot concern (major spoiler for #4):
** spoiler omitted **

Generally speaking, I pull punches, or fudge dice rolls as it were, in combats or events that are relatively inconsequential. Unless the PCs do something foolish, the thugs don't get to take heads. Big monsters or leaders take heads. I've crucified PCs near to death and usually maim a few per campaign (never underestimate a good maiming). John Wick wrote an article for the L5R RPG that argued (paraphrasing here), the more you punish your player's characters, the more the player's will love the game, and I believe that. Tonight my PCs are surrounded by thugs in the Seven's Sawmill. They might not be able to take the opposition, being out numbered two to one. Now, the bad boss might not be around, so I'll probably beat the PCs unconsious and then torture them (I just saw Casino Royale recently)! I might maim one, or all!!

Pull your punches with thugs, but punish your PCs.

Believe me, they'll be back next week on the edge of their seats.

Actually, aren't all the changes to D&D that WOTC seem to believe are necessary a great opportunity for 3rd party publishers. It wouldn't be hard to envision a series of pdfs, Louis Porter Jr. style, that would detail a single class designed for 4E, but adhering to the more traditional wizard, fighter, etc.

Maybe instead of the idea of a 3.75, it might be more feasible to revise 4E once it's out. The Pathfinder Chronicles setting book provides the fluff, and a later supplement, or Pathfinder articles, provide the crunch...