The Party of Six: 10th Level

Storming the main compound of the Blue hand Clan went well until a particularly weaselly little goblin rogue raised the alarm. Compound defenses became much more challenging, ultimately ending in a retreat by our heroes after encountering a well entrenched Stoneface and a large number of archers setup on a balcony. They have returned to the vicinity of the shipwreck, the scent of which has been greatly enhanced by a decomposing dragon corpse. So they opt for a much more difficult perch on the cliff face.

Agninu - Stalwart Guard pg 81,Acolyte Power pg 209(switch Get over Here with Unbalancing Parry), Paragon large shield of protection (13th level).
Beck - Defensive Rally pg 149, Skill Training: Perception.
Cthic - Shadow Stride pg 122, Two Weapon Defense, Rouge's gloves (12th level)
Darrin - Resistance, pg 164; Arcane Gate pg 163, Improved Initiative, Magic +3 Dagger
Ehlin - Mass Cure Light Wounds, Improved Initiative,Rope of Climbing.

Each character receves 1680 gp and still has not had a chance to deal with the art and gems. Tje pile of left over magic items is still sizable but didn't grow at all during this level.

Update The Party of Six files: Cthic, Ehlin

As our heroes close in on paragon tier I found a few errors that required me to re-upload the PDF's.

Cthic 9th: There was an error in his 9th level hp.
Ehlin 9th: All attack values for all implement based powers were not updated for the new holy symbol, nor was it's title, though the body text was correct.

Thanks,
Snorkey

The Party of Six: 9th Level

In the morning, the party was awakened by a rather unhappy Adult Black Dragon, after a botched attempt to parlay a rather intense skirmish broke out. The party was victorious, but Agninu and Ehlin were taken down but not killed. Two new suits of armor and a shiny Holy symbol were found after a good bit of swimming. The balance of the day was spent cleaning out a forward outpost of the Blue Hand Clan. During the interrogations, the identity of the clans leader, Alisha Stoneface, was learned.

Agninu - Thicket of Blades pg 80,Amulet of Protection +3 pg 249
Beck - Knock Them Down pg 148, Black Iron Scale +2 pf 227
Cthic - Deadly Positioning pg 121, Sunleaf Leather +3 pg 231
Darrin - Ice Storm pg 163, Wall of Fire pg 163.
Ehlin - Flame Strike pg 67, Symbol of Battle +2 pg 237

Each party member receives 1360 gp; though they still have yet to liquidate the Art and gems from last time. Beck's Razor Scale +1 goes into party treasure, as does Cthic's Deathcut Leather +1, and Ehlin's Symbol of Hope +1.

The Party of Six: 8th Level

Harborhearth is certainly the largest place our heroes have ever seen, and it is not to Agninu's liking, nor are the city jails. The party has however, found the strong hold of the Blue Hand Clan and are currently resting in an abandoned shipwreck after a long days fight, mostly against Orc's Ogres, and a particularly nasty Dead Tree Dryad and her human lackeys.

Agninu - Str, Cha; Novice Power pg 209 (swap: Crushing Blow for Disruptive Strike pg 106)
Beck - Str, Wis; Improved Initiative pg 198; Diadem of Acuity (8th level) pg 248;
Cthic - Dex, Con; Defensive Mobility pg 194;
Darrin - Int, Wis; Astral Fire pg 193; Ghostphase Cloth +2
Ehlin - Wis, Cha; Light Step pg 198; Handy Haversack

Each person receives 330 gp, and the following is placed into the party treasure: 2 x 500gp rubies, 4 x 100gp pearls, 5 matched paintings of elemental chaos (250 gp each), 3 tombs of great antiquity (250 gp each) that deal with the politics of a forgotten Eldrin Nation, Finally a pair of sending stones were also acquired.

Additionally, Darrins old suit of Bloodthread Cloth Armor +1 goes into the recycling pile.

Updated The Party of Six files

The very kind Gregor LeBlaque pointed out that I had miss-calculated the Hp by using the Con bonus instead of the Con Score, resulting in lower Bloodied and Healing Surge values.
I have re-pushed the following pre-gen character PDF's

Agninu - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th.
Beck - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th.
Cthic - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th.
Darrin - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th.
Ehlin - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th.


The character sheets rolling forward should be more accurate and of a more compact format.

All characters have been updated.

Thank you,
Snorkey

The Party of Six: 5th Level

While leaving the Crossroads The Party of Six stopped to visit with the Starving Rock. Though Agninu amused it with threats of violence (and was knocked over by the chuckle), the party did secure a promise of a prophesy upon completion of a quest: find the heart of it's beloved. They then proceeded to the Den of the Goblin queen.
There they faced several nasty encounters, though mostly with the goblins.
Agninu is vastly more subdued and now works well with both Beck and Cthic, creating opportunities for them to excel rather than basking in her own glory.

Agninu - Vicious Longsword+2, Dizzying Blow pg 79
Beck - Light shield of Defiance, Stand of the Fallen pg 147
Cthic - Walking Wounded pg 120
Darrin - Bloodthread +1, Fireball pg 161, Icy Grasp pg 161
Ehlin - Weapon of the Gods pg 65


The Shadowfell gloves go into the party treasure, as Darrin really doesn't like the looks of them and Ehlin won't touch them. The party also acquired the Ritual "Knock". The party aslo decided to create an operating reserve fund of 1280 gp.

The Party of Six: 4th Level

The heroes finally faced down "Big Boy" and his goblin cohorts. Though the party won the battle, Agninu was immolated before the rest of the team could close. Despite Cthic's protests, Darrin persuaded the team to have her raised at the crossroad village. She came back... different.

Agninu - Str, Dex; Warrior of the Wild (took heal and received Hunters Query class feature as an encounter ability).
Beck - Thunderburst crossbow +1; Str, Dex; Defensive Mobility
Cthic - Deathcut leather +1; Str, Dex; Enlarged Dragon Breath
Darrin - Staff of Fiery Might +2; Int, Cha; Raging Thunder
Ehlin - Magic Chainmail +2; Wis, Str; Skill focus (Healing)
265gp each.

The Sylvan Leather was sold to Cthzag for 136gp, as was Agninu's Axe for 168gp. These proceeds were spent, along with 374gp of Agninu's wealth to get her raised.

Notes: feats added, stats awarded (but not adjusted).

The Party of Six: 3rd Level

Life in the Party of Six has become shouting matches punctuated by occasional fights, sometimes even with Kobolds and their Goblin allies. The most dramatic verbal sparing matches have been between Agninu and Cthic (with Beck chuckling in the background).
The tiny kobold mage "Big Boy" remains elusive, having abandoned his followers to the Party, he fled into the night, presumably into the arms of the Goblin Queen.

Agninu - Horned Helm; Crushing Blow
Beck - Boots of Spider Climbing; Steel Monsoon
Cthic - Sylvan leather +1; Topple Over
Darrin - Fire Shroud
Ehlin - Split the sky.
208 gp each

The Everlasting Provisions goes into Party treasure along with "Agninu's Axe".

The Party of Six: 2nd Level

Our adventuring company, tracking the "Blue Hand Clan", stumbled upon a fortified cavern nest of Koblods. In the battles that followed Agninu preferred to charge headlong into targets, sometimes dragging Beck along. Her rash style has caused some strife amongst Darrin's friends Cthic and Beck. In interrogating a lone survivor the Company has discovered that "Big Boy" (a shrimp of a Kobold mage) is the leader of local branch of the Clan.

Agninu - Battleforged Plate +1, Takes Powerful charge and "Get over Here" utility.
Beck - Razor Scale +1, Armor Proficiency (scale) and Aid the Injured utility.
Cthic - Potion of Healing, Backstabber feat and Tumble utility.
Darrin - Human male wizard; Alertness, Expeditious retreat and Shield utility's.
Ehlin - Symbol of Hope +1; Human Perseverance and Cure Light wounds utility.
134 gp to each party member.

The Battle Axe of Terror +1 remains in party treasure along with a 100gp pearl until the party can decide what to do with them. (Agninu REALLY wants the Axe).

The Party of Six: 1st Level

Agninu, with assistance from her uncle Darrin forms the adventuring company to destroy the rampaging Blue Hand Clan.

1st Level

Agninu - Human female fighter
Beck - Eldrin male warlord
Cthic - Dragonborn female rouge
Darrin - Human male wizard
Ehlin - Half-elf female cleric of Pellor.

Tomorrow: 2nd Level.

Choices to Make: 4E vs 3.5 vs Pathfinder

At this moment I am debating if I should: switch to 4th ed (though I do plan to run a game in 4ed as an experiment); Stick with 3.5 in an OGL form; or Start using Paizo's Pathfinder alpha rules for D&D NPC generated on this site. Admittedly, in the past, I have posted precious few NPC stat block here, which was and still is the intent of this site.

D&D 4th
Pros: NPC generation is very easy, as equipment is largely irrelevant, as are feats and skills.
Cons: The SGL is a bit restrictive AND currently Wizards of the Coast has not published their Web Site licensing terms, which I fear may be even more restrictive in terms of what I can include in a stat block.
Comments: I do like, at first blush, D&D 4th Ed, but some of the licensing unknowns scare me. I am sadden by what they have done to the economy (not that D&D ever had any real economic balance or realism). I like how, even at 30th level, a full blown PC will still be relatively simple and concise. I do like how encounters are group vs. group. I also like how it mechanically encourages teamwork.

D&D 3.5 OGL
Pros: Nice licensing terms, but if I go this route I might be restricted in what I publish in 4th Ed terms. A further benefit is the wealth of material both official and 2nd party. Finally, there are a number of tools that make creating NPC less intensive. I also have some issues with the balancing, especially with multi-class characters.
Cons: NPC generation is very cumbersome, In fact I pretty much have to use a tool like HeroForge or PC Gen to create characters. I am further limited by the fact that the tools, for the most part do not produce the Stat block format that I would prefer (DMG II format).
Comments: Creating a arcane spell caster is the most difficult task even with the tools, as first you must select the spells, then choose which spells they would typically have selected for the day.

Pazio's 3.5 Pathfinder Alpha.
Pros: Equipping and creating NPC's seems simpler than standard 3.5. I believe that the licensing is reasonably flexible with regard to what I want to do with it.
Cons: This rule system is still in Alpha, which means it can and will change. The Beta rule set wont be available until August of this year. And given that it is a 3.5 derivation, it may have some of the same balancing issues that 3.5 has. HeroForge has a few tools to assist in NPC generation. It's another system to learn.
Comments: The NPC generation rules are short, succinct and to the point. The question of "how much equipment" does this person have is easily answered. The mutability and current incompleteness of the rule set is less than desirable.

Generic System Less NPC's
Pros: No numbers to crunch, no balance issues, very flexible; Non-genera specific; Not RPG specific.
Cons: More work for you the reader as you are required to create the stat block and balance the NPC with your game.
Comments: Most of the NPC sketches that I have created so far have been of this nature. The Base NPC's do not specify a setting; assume a race; technology level; or even the gender of the NPC. In fact I had some hope that writers might stumble upon the generics and find a use for them in non-rpg writing.

I don't plan to make a decision tonight, or even this month: I've got an Adventure to write.

WoAdWriMo: The Plan

For World Adventure Writing Month I plan to create a D&D 4th Ed adventure for the Epic Levels of 21 to 24. It's a some what daunting task I admit but it should be fun. I plan to break it up into 3 parts:

Part 1, Ascensions' Door: has the party pursuing a BBEG to the Elemental Dome. I estimate 12 encounters using Wizards' two page encounter format (24 pages) . There will be another 4 pages of background, 3 new magic items (1 page), 8 new monsters (mostly in the elemental theme, I guess 3 to 5 pages for this), 2 full page maps (over land and temple layout).

Part 2, Temple of Ascension: is set on a series of islands deep in the astral sea, I figure 18 encounters with a final battle against the BBEG, hopefully just prior to their ascension to god status. If they succeed, there are all of the materials and info for becoming a god them selves (which would then lead into part 3). In the case of Failure, BBEG ascends to god hood and the players are tasked with ridding the universe of the BBEG.

Part 3, To Kill a God/Setting up house: - is a hypothetical successor to part 2, as the players attempt to destroy the newly formed god (from part 2) OR set up shop in a newly created realm as gods them selves, or something.

Of course, given the amount that I have written so far (you are pretty much looking at it). My plans may change, fall apart or decompose into so much compost.

4E Session - Character Generation

Due to absences our usual session of Giant Smash (3.5 D&D port of the classic module Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl run by Bill) or Geth Blast (A Gurps port of Mass Effect run by Rob) had to be scrapped. So instead my victi... er fellow players started generating characters for my D&D 4th Ed game that I will be running.

Stephen chose to be a human Paladin with a ranger ability by way of a multi class feat.
Andrea is going to be a Warlock.
Bill has created a Dragonborn Warlord.

Dave, Rob, Laura, and Kevin were not in attendance.

Over all the session went well aside from torrents of not entirely unfounded criticism from Stephen, which is fine, it's the way that Stephen is. Most of his complaints were around layout and editing issues, with a smattering of arbitrary summary "is broken" judgments.

I probably won't be running the game until early fall, but that should almost be enough time to prepare.

Snork
--
Snorkey: is posting.

4ed0001-01 Alester Adams Cleric of Erathis

So here is my first 4th ed PC: A human battle cleric of Erathis.

Alester Adams Level 1 Cleric of Erathis (Leader) Medium Natural Humanoid (Human) XP 100

Initiative +4 Senses Perception +3 HP 13; Bloodied 6 AC 16; Fortitude 11, Reflex 11, Will 13 Speed 5 Healing Surges 8 Action Points 1

Attack Lance of Faith (Standard; At Will) * Divine, Implement, Radiant Range 5, Single Creature, +3 vs Reflex, 1d8+3 Radiant damage and one ally you can see gains a +2 power bonus to their next attack roll against the target.

Melee Priest's Shield (Standard; At-Will) * Divine, Weapon Single Target, +5 vs AC, 1d10+3(Morning Star) damage, and you and one adjacent ally gain a +1 power bonus to AC until the end of your next turn.

Melee Righteous Brand (Standard; At-Will) * Divine, Weapon Single Target, +5 vs AC, 1d10+3 damage, and one ally within 5 squeares of you gains +3 power bonus to melee attacks against the target until the end of your next turn.

Melee Healing Strike (Standard, Encounter) * Divine, Healing, Radiant, Weapon Single Creature, +5 vs AC, 2d10+3 radiant damage, and the target is marked until the end of your next turn. In addition, you or one ally witin 5 squares can spend a healing surge.

Feat Channel Divinity: Harmony of Erathis (Minor, Encounter) * Divine Range 10, Single Ally, if you have at least three allies within range, grant one of those allies a +2 power bonus to their first attack roll before the start of your next turn.

Power Beacon of Hope (Standard, Daily) * Divine, Healing, Implement Close Burst 3, +3 vs Will, Target is weakend until the end of its next turn, You and your allies in the burst regain 5 hp, and your healing powers restore +5 hp until the end of the encounter.

Lawful Good Languages: Common, Draconic Skills Arcana (int) + 5, Diplomacy(Cha) +5, Heal(Wis) +8, Insight(wis) +8, Religion(wis) +5 Feats Improved Initiative, Harmony of Erathis Str 16(+3) Dex 10(+0) Wis 16 (+3) Con 12(+1) Int 11 (+0) Cha 13 (+1)

Equipment Chainmail, Morning Star (+5 vs AC 1d10+3), CrossBow (+2 vs AC, 1d8, range 15/30, load minor), Adventures Kit, Holly Symbol, 5gp.

Motivation: True Faith, an restoring ancestral lands titles to his family.
History: Trained for battle in the Law offices of the Great City, Alester is out to recover the lost lands and bring the lawless to heal.

Notes: This took about 2 1/2 hours to create, mostly due to ignorance of the rules and a fair amount of page flipping. I modeled the layout on the Monster Manual. Editing done in Emacs.

D&D 4th Edition Announced

This weekend at GenCon, WOTC announced that they would be releasing D&D 4th edition in May, June, July of 2008.
I was a bit surprised by this: I figured that they would wait until the release date was a bit closer so that they would not create an impression of "Obsolescence" for any and all upcoming releases.

I personally look forward to the new release with the hope that it will make NPC generation a less daunting task. I especially look forward to the online tools and "portrait" generation. (though I fear that they may be a bit to clunkey or archane to use). The price tag of $120 a year for DNDInsider (some day this link will actually go somewhere besides the home WOTC home page) seems a might bit steep, though I have spent more on RPG software that I don't use.

For the most part I feel that most of the books that I own would still be usefull for concepts, though the rules heavy books and spell book will be the first ones that are Obsoleted.

Now, to get on a regular schedule of NPC posting.

Snork
--
Snorkey: There are clouds on the horizon, a change is coming.