Distraction Orbs and Other Annoying Minions

Distraction Orbs is a type of Minion I sometimes use that generally lowers the defenses of the party. It has no other purpose and does not do any damage

Here is an example of one that focuses on reflex

The choice becomes tough for the players; do they destroy the minion then have an effect on them that a save can end?

I’ve also made it more difficult for higher levels

The level 11 minion’s death burst effect is Slowed & -2 Reflex (Save Ends)

The level 21 minion’s death burst effect is Immobilized & -2 Reflex (Save Ends)

Its nice and simple, the creatures have decent speed, are tiny, and hover. These three key elements allows them to get close to the party and just hang around

Stench Skull is the Fort based minion

Level 1: -2 Fort (SE)

Level 11: Can’t Shift & -2 Fort (SE)

Level 21: Can’t spend healing surges & -2 Fort (SE)

There are probably some better options for level 11, but in general these little guys can add an annoyance level to any combat without making it that much more difficult. 

Minion Craze or Portal Pleasure

This encounter remains to be one of my groups most favourite and is still talked about to this day.

The room has no monsters except for minions, the general goal is to disable all the portals, and activate another one so the party can leave

Each blue square is a portal. And are far enough a part it’s hard for the wizards to make it to one each turn

At the start of combat and on each minion’s initiative, every active portal summons in a new minion who goes immediately.

To disable a portal requires someone to be adjacent to it, standard action, arcane {Trained} check DC [(5 per tier) + 15]

The pit in the room should be at least 10 feet per tier, and is used by the minions.

This encounter can go on for a few good rounds since the players need to climb back up and in, and it can get out of hand fast since 12 minions per round are going to be spawning in. But it is loads of fun for everyone

I used a Modified Groom Guardian, only difference was it had Fly (hover). I recommend the same but adjusting it for whatever level you need.

**Rules note: I’m not sure about the rules of teleporting something in air, but it is one of those things that as a DM you should allow in the case of the monster because it is indeed an attack**

Groom Guardian: Demonomicron Page 93: http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/monster.aspx?id=5105

Next DND or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Edition Wars

Some people are getting upset and all in arms of the latest edition coming to d&d

My group of 12 has mixed feelings as well. Two people said they were not going to buy any new books.

This is an outright lie and you know it; we've been playing D&D for roughly 12-16-20 years.

We've played every edition of D&D, we've played WoD, Shadowrun, M&M, Chill and many other games.

We are going to play the next edition because that’s what we do.

It’s a Money Grab

I find a hard time believing D&D makes money to the eyes of Hasbro, and perhaps that’s part of the problem. D&D is a game of passion, created by those who are passionate about it. Controlled by those who need to balance the books.

Personally as a veteran player and DM I can only see us buying the core books, no campaign books or anything. And with the DDI character builder, i have no need to buy any class books.

As a group of 12, I can see us buying maybe 9 books in total, and that’s all we will ever need.

My point is if you’re worried about the edition wars, don't be. Just keep playing with your group and have fun; because that’s what D&D is all about.

Until next time keep your dice on the table.

Dynamic Worlds

Ok so my main goal with the blog is to get the ideas i've been building up and putting it out there for other dm's to use in their campaign.

Tonight I want to talk about the Dynamic World.

One of my favourite things about the D&D Challenges they have released is that they keep changing things up and the environment from one round to another is in a state of constant change

Dynamic Terrain

So when you build your encounter, you can create some options on how the terrain will change and when will it change. Will it change on a certain round or if players step over the area.

-_-

Flooding Room

In this encounter you have a 'trapped' room that does not seem to have an exit. The room is full of columns and pillars of different sizes. Players cannot see the top of the room. When the trap is trigger the room begins flooding and fast. Water rushes from above coating the walls making climbing them almost impossible.

Roll initiative for the water, each round on its turn flood the room 1 square high for each tier the players are.

Some characters can fly, some can swim, other characters can try and jump from pillar to pillar until they get to the top.

On round 2 add some slimes or other swimming creatures that enter battle and cause havoc with the swimming players.

On round 3 add some tiny/small flying based creatures that have been startled by the noise and are attacking the party. This causes problems with the flying members of the party and those trying to jump around

In general the encounter should be free form a bit, it should take the characters 4+t rounds to reach the end. (t being their tier)

If you want to add some extra damage add falling rocks on round 4, burst 1 in random x/y locations

-_-

The flooding room is just one example of dynammic terrain, the idea that the world the players live and breath in changes every moment

Another classic example of this is a collapsing floor.  Perhaps the characters need to cross a damaged section of the keep and if they stay too close parts of the floor collapse. Maybe some collapse anyway

The idea is thinking about how your encounter can change. In the epic levels you can realy experiment. Imagine the party fighting a demon where you have 4 maps set out. Each round on a initiative order everyone plane shifts. they still are in their x/y position but now they are some where different.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Works great. 1 encounter 4 maps.

-_-

It takes some work to set this up and change things every round, but the players will remember it for some time

Anyway, that's the start. Until next time keep your dice on the table.

627 Days later

So with the news of 5th edition coming out I’ve decided to bring my old d&d blog back.

Not because I want to speculate on 5th edition and add my two cents in, but because I’ve got a large book of DM tricks I’ve built the last while and just don't think ill use them all.

So for the next little while, ill be posting really challenging encounter ideas and of course my suggestions for the next edition :)

Until next time keep your dice on the table.

A week of Challenging Encounters

Shadow of Orcus

My core group finished off the end of P2 last night, the book seemed like a waste of money. The players were able to use rituals and skip a lot of the encounters, and why shouldn't they be allowed to they are level 16.

In the end they had one big fight in the last room though. i added a extra bit of flair that really affected the encounter. The final encounter has a map provided by WotC, and there are four stones each of different colors. I decided to make these power stones that affected the entire area.

Yellow - All living creatures grant combat advantage
- requires 3x arcana checks dc30 {standard actions} to deactivate
- 2 success gives the disabling player a recharge of a arcane encounter power
- 3 success gives the disabling player a 'once this encounter re-cast an encounter arcane power you just cast'

Green - All living creatures take 5 necrotic damage at the start of their turn
{most players in my party have necro resist 10}
- requires 3x religion checks dc30 {standard action} to deactivate
- 1 success grants the disabling player 1 temp hp
- 2 success grants the disabling player 5 temp hp
- 3 success grants the disabling player 15 temp hp

Blue - All living creatures have -2 to attack rolls
- requires 3x thievery or dungeoneering checks dc25 {standard action} to deactivate
- 3 success grants the disabling player +2 to hit for the rest of the encounter
- 2 success grants the disabling player an additional minor action usable once during the encounter

Red - Living creatures cannot heal or spend hit points
- requires 3x heal checks dc25 {standard action} to deactivate
- 1 success grants the disabling player 5 hp
- 2 success grants the disabling player 5 hp
- 3 success grants the disabling player free use of second wind {does not count as using second wind}

This offered a huge challenge to the players, first they were just fighting the two main undead in the room, but round 2 the 1/2 the vampire spawns came in, round 3 1/2 the ghouls came in, round 4 the other 1/2 of vampire spawns, round 5 the other 1/2 of the ghoul, round 6 the lich came in and round 7 the BBEG came in. Sadly warlock+wizard+actionpoint the lich and BBEG died on round 8. combat was over on round 9.

But at least 3 of the players were locked up at any given time disabling the power nodes.

To end it off the little room ( a realm of its own ) collapse in on itself and spat the players across the cosmos. Should be a fun next session

D&D Encounters

All i got to say is wow, what a tough creature. I had the players begging for hit points each round. While the monster was in orb form it really did not move. So instead of wasting its move action i droped it for another minor action to do the minor attack two times a turn.

All players charged in, only to relize that on their turn they would be taking 5 damage. Mixing that with the blue flames from Wotc's twitter made this encounter challenging. However the players were greatly rewarded when they finished it and felt a sense of accomplishment.

Little do they know whats going on next week. buo hahahaha.. ...

D&D Rewards - an open letter to WotC

I love the encounters, the team at wotc did a great job. However i would like to see rewards for players who make it out more. Real tangible items for gaining renown. WotC obviously spent some money on pizza gift cards and digital cameras, why not use that towards miniatures instead.

Players earning 50 renown points gets a random rare player miniature.
Players earning 30 renown points gets a random uncommon player miniature.
Players earning 20 renown points gets a gift certificate for $2 off or something.

At the end of the day im sure the certificate will actually cost more then taking an existing product and giving it away.

Sometimes i grow so tired, but i know there's one single thing i've got to do
Tumblr On

Ok i've signed up for tumblr, i find it easier to micro blog from the ipod then have to power up my computer that i hate so much. You can find me at mleger.tumblr.com and i plan on posting lots of updates there, not just d&d ones.

Harrowing Halls Review

Ok so maybe I'm a bit behind the curb considering this came out last month but hey i just picked it up during the last #dndenc

I have not had a chance to use it yet in combat but i have some time to play with them in general, and test them out.

The tile-set comes with 2 large surface area tiles, which tend to be the most used in my games.

Good
The good is probably that this is the first 3d set out to date where you can use the 2d tiles and make a 3d landscape. This is nothing new some of us have been trying to find ways to add a 3rd dimension to combat for a while now. The most successful i can think of in the media is the guys over at penny arcade and their falling combat.

With finally a door, stairs and fully built rooms on one tile there is lots to look forward to.

Bad
The bad is that there is only a few sets of 3rd items most of them are just cubes and there is nothing fancy about that. It seems like 2 of the 3rd objects are really nothing more then a slightly raised platform. Also one of the tiles is a very specific entrance way on one side and i don't see it being used unless your building out the scenario on the cover.

Ugly
Its the same products as before with the same material so it comes to no suprise that when poke out the cut-aways the images peeled off in some areas.

What i would have done
These products seem rushed, like they were given to a one or two person team to make some images then sent off somewhere in china to be printed. With a little bit of effort they could be made so much better. On the back of the cover WotC shows how you can build a dungeon using the tiles you just received. Why not go one step forward and add a insert that includes maybe a small delve, some npc's just something else beyond the tiles that is low cost and adds to the value.

Overall
Overall I'm a sucker for the tiles. Sure i use grid paper where I've painted & drawn the encounters myself 90% of the time, i enjoy using the tiles where i can. If you can pickup two sets and glue the 3rd parts so they stay together. The stairs are pretty good.

Until next time keep your dice on the table.