The Council of Spiders, Part 6

One of the weird issues I have with Dungeons & Dragons in later editions (3.0+) was that although there were no mechanical limits on race-class combinations, there still existed mechanical features that dis-incentivized certain combinations. In Fourth Edition, it became even more prevalent as races had fixed attribute bonuses. Since a Dwarf could never get an Intelligence bonus, a Dwarf wizard would never be as good as a Human wizard or a Tiefling wizard. Similarly, a Drow would normally never make as good a fighter as a Dwarf or a Goliath. Because of the design that went into it, maximizing hit rates became exceedingly important so having a higher primary ability score was exceedingly important.

This became extremely obvious in the current season of Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters, where every pre-made character had its race changed to Drow. Now, the slayer fighter is less effective than he had been when he was a Dwarf. The wizard is less effective than when he was a Human. As a person who has been bending the Character Builder to his will for as long as I have, this really bothered me. Unfortunately, House Xorlarrin, one of the three houses involved with the adventure, is supposed to focus on arcane spell-casting. I tried to find ways I could get arcane spell-casters to match up well with a Drow without simply breaking the build requirements. Pelloth is my attempt at doing just that.

Pelloth, graduate of Sorcere.

He does have a wizard-like feel to him.

The powers exhibited by the Gloom Pact Binder seemed to fit in with the arcane Drow ideal. Pelloth manipulates the shadows, darkness, and gloom as taught to him at Sorcere. The cold hand of darkness envelops all who stand before him in his quest to construct the Demon Weave. Furthermore, as the primary ability scores for the Gloom Pact Binder are Dexterity and Charisma, it fit perfectly well with the Drow ability scores.

With Pelloth, players at Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters don't have to feel like being a part of House Xorlarrin means you have to be slightly less effective than the rest of the party. Hopefully, I can figure out other clever ways to match up arcane power with the Drow attribute set.

The Council of Spiders, Part 5

The current D&D: Encounters season, Council of Spiders, is more than half over. However, it has reached the point in the story where things have begun to get more suspicious and entangled. Characters may have already begun forming suspicions about how the other characters intend to backstab them at the worst possible time. That is, assuming they have not done so already.

To continue in my journey of supplementing the D&D: Encounters collection of pre-made characters, I am providing another Drow to join the ranks. This Drow, however, is a bit different than most of the rest. This Drow, a male of House Melarn, has a very different purpose and goals than most of the members of his house.

Sorin, Elderboy of House Melarn and Drow Vampire

His goal is nothing short of the toppling of House Melarn.

The inspiration for this character came from one of the players in my weekly D&D Encounters group. He had actually read quite a bit of the new D&D book, Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue. He suggested a character to me that was not a member of any of the three groups set forth in the Encounters season. Instead, he chose a member of Jaezred Chaulssin who was masquerading as a member of another house. To that end, he often acted suspiciously when certain events would occur as his character actively tried to upset the plans of Lolth and House Melarn. Imagine his surprise when the assassin in session 5 was also a member of Jaezred Chaulssin...

I liked the idea of somebody within House Melarn secretly intending to upset the plans of House Melarn and the Spider Queen. With the story proceeding as it goes, it would not be especially difficult to drive a wedge between the houses. So, an Elderboy from House Melarn with a big chip on his shoulder became the basis for this character. From there, imbuing him with the power of the vampire just seemed to make sense. I thought of this idea, n Elderboy who had discovered power that made him better than the priestesses that had beaten him for so many decades, and it just made sense.

Hopefully, this character will give people a new take on the Council of Spiders. Unlike the other four characters I made, I made Sorin a level 2 character so he would fit along with the rest of the party.

The Council of Spiders, Part 4

Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters is all about introducing new people to the game. Session 0 of Council of Spiders was last week and as an Encounters Dungeon Master, it's my responsibility to make sure new players have a good sense of what they are doing. Part of the way I have always tried to do that was by providing clear, relatively easy to understand pre-made characters for new players to use. I also have a number of player aids that help explain certain game mechanics in an easy-to-digest way.

Last week I actually had a fellow come in who had never played Dungeons & Dragons before. We went through the character building process and he was able to grasp most of what Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms was saying, but I could not help but think that when it comes time for the actual game, he will have a bear of a time with the fancy Encounters character sheet that he wrote his character down on. I thought about it and realized I could very easily whip up a character card for him that would at least simplify the character sheet interaction. From this process, Xian was born.

Whatever you do, don't call him Belgos.

Another Bregan D'Aerth mercenary joins the ranks.

As this new player built his character, I realized that he created a very slight alternative to Belgos. I considered just giving him the Belgos character card but the differences were sufficient that I thought it would be neat to turn his character into a pre-made card and share it with the world at large.

With three Bregan D'Aerthe mercenaries in my set of characters, perhaps it is about time that I look into a different type of character.

The Council of Spiders, Part 1 (Revised)

He's busy with that.

When I first created the "re-make" of Ryltar, I did not have a good picture of the character that appears on the card. I suggested at the bottom of the post that I would revisit the character once I had a clean shot of the Drow warrior. When I finally realized that the image used for Ryltar was actually from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, I was somewhat surprised. I had access to the picture the whole time (through the D&D Art Archives). Keeping that in mind, I poked around and found the original picture.

Of course, imagine my surprise when I discovered that the picture was much busier than I would have imagined. The entire bottom of the photo involved the severe slaying of a bullywug (or some other sort of froggy like creature). The red background was similar to what I worked with before, so that was not especially frustrating. The Drow warrior still had the quiver on his back, a thing that I still found surprisingly irritating as the character did not have a bow. Most surprising, though, was that the image had been flipped horizontally. All of these facts seemed a bit peculiar but I was willing to work around them.

New and Improved Ryltar

Now with additional abilities!

Some people may question the color change. D&D: Encounters character cards have always been color coded in such a way that you can easily determine what type of character it is just by the color. Of course, the thing that is being color coded in the classic cards is the power source (Psionic, Martial, Divine, Primal, or Arcane). Honestly, when I realized how the colors were chosen, it did not take long for me to decide against doing that. Although it would have been easier to keep Ryltar's background red as it goes better with the original image, I wanted all of the Drow characters I made to share background elements. As it ends up, this card uses the same background color as another card I worked on at the same time, so that's the reason for it. If I were more clever, I would have color coded them by House affiliation.

As the new Drow character themes were available, I changed Ryltar to be a Bregan D'Aerthe Mercenary which gave him a bonus to his Bluff check and a new combat ability, Skullduggery. All around, this version of Ryltar is actually quite playable and I hope people find him an effective replacement for the original.

The Council of Spiders, Part 3

Having made a Drow servant of Lolth, I thought I should also make a few characters that fit in with the other "factions" of the new Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters season. Of course, my ability to craft quality Drow characters is surprisingly limited by my ability to find good pictures of Drow to use for the card. Keeping that in mind, I thought I would try and make some sort of quality Bregan D'aerthe mercenary using a picture I was able to grab from the Neverwinter Campaign Guide book.

For those unfamiliar, Bregan D'aerthe is an elite Drow mercenary company primarily composed of male Drow of fallen houses. Founded by noted R. A. Salvatore character Jarlaxle Baenre, Bregan D'arthe works for the various Houses of Menzoberranzan and anybody else wealthy enough to pay their fee. I felt like any Bregan D'aerthe mercenaries I make should be powerful and have his power come from a unique and peculiar source. The Lady of the White Well, the cursed daughter of Sehanine and a mortal enchanted by Lolth to look like Corellon, seemed like an interesting thematic match. From there, the Fey Hexblade mercenary Kelnozz was born.

A bold mercenary of Bregan D'aerthe.

His Cloud of Darkness is bigger than yours.

I have been trying to give these new Encounters characters a little bit of backstory to plug them into the plot of the adventure. All of these characters come already "slotted" into one of the three factions presented in the Encounters packet. Obviously, Kelnozz is an agent of Bregan D'aerthe. I also selected the Bregan D'aerthe Spy character theme from the Neverwinter Campaign Guide as it was available in the Character Builder and effectively captured the essence of the character concept.

Hopefully, Kelnozz will bring new players a more interesting experience than the pre-gens provided by Wizards of the Coast. He fits nicely into the pre-built factions provided in the Council of Spiders adventure and should be an interesting addition to the set.

The Council of Spiders, Part 2

When the new season of Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters was announced to be the story of Drow machinations in and about Menzoberranzan, it was apparent that the "classic" pre-made characters would not work. Wizards of the Coast provided a set of new characters to use but I found them to be somewhat lacking. After looking at them, I felt it was appropriate  to remake all six of them so they would be more effective at what they were supposed to do.

After finishing the first one, the Drow Slayer Ryltar, I started looking at other interesting Drow character possibilities. It did not take long for me to decide that it would be a little more interesting to make my own Drow characters for use in D&D: Encounters. For my first attempt, I present a very different kind of Drow priestess.

Not the best front line character, with defenses like those...

Who doesn't love turning into a giant spider?

When I was putting this together, it made sense to me that a loyal servant of Lolth would be able to transform into a giant spider in service of the Spider Queen. The only real character class that supported this was the Player's Handbook 2 Druid, a class that gets very little love or respect in the Dungeons & Dragons 4E continuum. I had been talking to a friend about how to do the PHB2 Druid properly and I thought this was a good opportunity to do that.'

Technically, the Druid's Wild Shape can turn into any animal. I limited it here to "Spider" only. Honestly, I cannot imagine that any self-respecting servant of Lolth choosing to polymorph into anything BUT a spider. Because spiders are a thing...

The Council of Spiders, Part 1

I have been in the business of making pre-made character cards for Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters for quite some time. I never would have expected to need to make new pre-made characters but I quickly found that some players wanted to use the Encounters program as an opportunity to explore new character types and concepts without having to to go through the trouble of making the character. Adding novelty character "images" was something I was more than happy to do.

One of the biggest problems I had with the pre-made characters provided was that they were not always well implemented characters. In fact, I find that they often had a plethora of poor choices in the design process. While there is something to be said about providing something to be improved upon, the idea that these characters felt like they had been made by somebody who did not understand the game was disheartening. Further, when a new person arrives and plays with a group of "regulars" with their own characters, the deficiencies of the pre-made characters became quite apparent.

With the new season of Encounters, a new stock of pre-made characters have finally been included for players to choose from. As this new season centers around the Drow and their machinations, it only made sense that a set of Drow adventurers would be included with the adventure content. The biggest problem with these characters is that they are actually just the previous six characters with the race option switched to "Drow." Some of these characters are so poorly implemented as to beg the question: Why print them at all? In response to that, I decided to look at each one in turn and see how I would have better developed it.

For once, I have chosen to abide by all of the official rules. This character is developed entirely from standard Essentials content. He is a Drow Slayer Fighter and all of his choices come from those allowed in the Essentials core books.

Drow + Slayer? Not the standard combination.

It's amazing what a good feat choice can do.

Ryltar is the Slayer Fighter of the bunch. On first glance of the character card, I was already thoroughly convinced that the folks responsible for making this did not have a good working knowledge of the game. The original Ryltar was a Strength-based Slayer with a Constitution of 14 and a Dexterity (his secondary stat) of 12. None of this felt right. I looked at it and realized that I had already made a Dexterity based Slayer, so it did not take me long to come up with a quick fix for ol' Ryltar. Swapping out his "Toughness" feat for "Melee Training (Dexterity)," I shifted the 18 Strength to Dexterity (bumping it up to 20). Keeping the Constitution at 14, I put the rest of the points into Charisma (for effect, I suppose).

The net effect was astounding. This new Ryltar was better at hitting his opponents AND dealt more damage. I swapped out his hand axe for a dagger so his ranged attack became absurdly more effective. With a high Dexterity, he was able to wear lighter armor and benefit from the natural Dexterity modifier, making his speed higher and most of his armor-affected skill checks better.

Honestly, after making this Dexterity based Ryltar, I could not see a way in which the original was superior. My Ryltar, made only using the elements of the Essentials books, was simply a more finely crafted character. A new player who picked this character up would still be able to compete with Encounters participants who made overly-optimized "super characters." Although not perfect, I think it better fit the intent of the original character while retaining it's Drow-iness and Slayer-iness.

NOTE: The image for this character card was taken from scans of the official D&D Encounters character card. Due to that, it bears characteristics of the medium. Once high-resolution images of the Drow characters are available, it will be updated accordingly. This website apologizes for the quality issue.

Dungeons of Dredmor (and Dragons), Part 2

After talking a lot about the Dungeoneer with his Pet Mimic, I could not imagine what other sorts of ridiculous characters would come out of this relationship.  It did not take long until my good friend Dominic came up with even more ridiculous ideas.  I suspect the next character he provided was inspired, in part, by the ever popular sequence from UHF: Conan the Librarian.

When we really began talking about it, I had spent a significant amount of time reading about the Berserker character class featured in Heroes of the Feywild.  The idea of the calm, collected librarian who eventually loses his cool and rages against errant teenagers and book graffiti artists was too entertaining and ridiculous an idea to pass up.  With a little talk and a little inspiration from Phil Foglio, Grom of the Reference Desk, Lord of Circulation and Shelving was born.

Grom, from a long line of noble librarians

Be wary of the Shush of the Five Tribes

When Dominic gave me Grom's character sheet, I was surprised to see how similar to my previous Berserker, Anakin Skywalker, Grom was.  Other than a few power and feat selections, the biggest difference was that Grom was also a Scholar (character theme), which gave him a slightly different set of abilities.  Comically, one of Grom's abilities has an ability based of his Intelligence modifier, which Grom is sadly lacking in.
Despite being very similar to Anakin, there is something very different about Grom.  A new player who chooses to play Anakin versus a new player who chooses to play Grom are undoubtedly going to have a very different experience.  Honestly, making the same mechanical character in two very different presentations does emphasize the point I tried to make when I first set out making these novelty character cards.  Although the rules provide a framework, it's what you bring to the table in the role-playing department that makes the game the fun that it is.  My biggest concern has been that, as a Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters DM, I rarely get an opportunity to play these characters myself.

Which is too bad...

Dungeons of Dredmor (and Dragons)

A friend of mine recently began talking to me about making strange Dungeons & Dragons characters in the style of the popular Rogue-like, Dungeons of Dredmor. Having never played the game, I did not have a whole lot to say about it, but I was happy to oblige his interest. Apparently, this interest was ... absolutely ridiculous characters. His first idea was an iconic dungeon explorer who had acquired a sort of "pet" in his travels: a mimic. As the story goes, after years of exploring the deep dungeons, this erstwhile adventurer found a very strange creature began following him around. From that idea came the most peculiar D&D character I've been party to...

My friend assures me that this makes perfect sense in the world of Dredmor. I suppose, as a fan of Torchlight, I understand how a Mimic might end up hopping alongside an adventurer, although it still felt a bit weird. Nonetheless, the idea of a brave dungeon explorer being followed around by a Pet Mimic has now been done in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

Danger is, in fact, his middle name...

Dungeon Adventurer, Born and Bred

When I was first approached by this, the real question centered on how to make a character that had a "pet" that acted enough like a Mimic. There were options, including some interesting character themes from Heroes of the Feywild, but the Sentinel Druid ended up being the one that made the most sense. If nothing else, granting combat advantage to everybody around it seemed like a viable feature for the Mimic. Who wouldn't be weirded out by a hopping chest trying to eat you?

Normally, all of my pre-generated D&D characters are "street legal."  This is the first time I changed text to better suit the needs of the character.  I suppose this partially motivated by the fact that I did not create this character; I just generated the character card. The daily power "No Dirty Fighting Here..." has been modified to be more expansive than its original form. The original ability, Shillelagh, only applied to hammers, maces, and staves. I felt that was far too limiting for "Danger" McCallahan, so I expanded it to be any weapon. It's a small deviation that I hope will not anger too many people that follow the blog.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 10)

For the longest time, I had a real problem with respect to two things in the whole D&D/Star Wars crossover.  First of all, I had really wanted to do a dual-lightsaber character but did not want to use villainous characters (such as Assajj Ventress).  Secondly, I had spent a great deal of time not knowing what to do with Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker's apprentice.  Both of these things bothered me and I would never have guessed that the two issues would one day come together.

But they did.  When I was watching season 3 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I noticed that Ahsoka Tano had two things hanging from her belt.  I assumed that one was a ... scanner?  Honestly, I had no idea what it was, but the one thing I knew it couldn't be was another lightsaber.  That is, until the Mortis trilogy, where she busted out dual lightsaber action!  It's like the writers had heard my thoughts, unduly upset about not being able to properly work a two-weapon character into my D&D re-skin.

The color is just because it matched the picture....

Dual lightsaber wielding action!

I found it somewhat difficult picking all of the appropriate class features for Ahsoka.  I wanted to make sure that anybody who picked her up (and knew waaaaay too much about Star Wars) would feel like she had been done right.  Ahsoka is an interesting character because she was put into the story to be a sort of reflection of Anakin Skywalker and his slow progression throughout the series.  This is somebody who learned the important parts of being a Jedi from somebody who is slowly being corrupted to darkness.

For those curious, this variant of Ahsoka is an Elf Ranger (Scout).  I felt that the higher Elf speed matched Ahsoka's agile style while the ability to re-roll an attack seemed to fit Ahsoka and her ability to do the most ridiculous stuff as a Padawan.  It seemed to work out well.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 3)

Not every character in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series is an attorney.  In fact, there are any number of absurd characters worth memorializing as Dungeons & Dragons characters that are anything but attorneys.  As I put the final touches on Apollo Justice, I realized that there was another character from that Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney that I wanted to make into a character to go along with Polly.  It only made sense to build his "assistant" and Phoenix Wright's adoptive daughter, Trucy, as a D&D character.

Notable illusionist, Trucy Wright!

She controls her enemies.

I decided I would experiment with Illusion magic and see how an Illusionist Mage would turn out.  The class feature "Illusion Apprentice" makes all targets hit by arcane illusion spells to suffer a -2 penalty to hit the caster un of Trucy's next turn.  An illusion feat, Phantom Echoes, causes all targets hit by an arcane illusion spell to grant combat advantage to Trucy until the end of her next turn.  Both of those effects seemed best described as a trait, so I wrote it onto the front of the card.  Enemies hit by Trucy's illusions will be highly motivated to stay away from her as they not only get a penalty but she gets a bonus to hit them.

The Phantom Echoes power had another peculiar feature that I spent some time mulling over.  If the attack had an effect which imposes a condition that a save can end, the granting of combat advantage is tied to that save roll.  This was only applicable in one case, with Trucy's daily attack power.  Instead of writing an exceedingly cumbersome traits box that separated that fact, I instead decided to implement it directly into the attack power.  So, her feat is actually split across a general trait describing every power and a subtle change to the single attack power that behaves recently.

It was fun putting together a few PW:AA characters and I hope to continue to get that chance moving forward.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 9)

After a while, making Jedi and Clone Troopers gets a little boring.  Occasionally, I feel as if I need to create something a bit different.  C-3PO and R2-D2 seemed like good choices for characters as they appear in quite a lot of Clone Wars episodes and they are iconic.  Unfortunately, making a protocol droid and an astromech droid using a ruleset that focuses on combat seemed difficult.

C-3PO was surprisingly simple once a friend helped me realize that he is simply the laziest of lazy warlords.  R2-D2 was tough, on the other hand.  Everybody had their own idea how he would be.  Some people thought he was a thief or rogue.  A wizard.  A bard.  Honestly, he is something of a generalist insomuch that he has a gadget for everything, so it was difficult finding something that captured him well.

I wanted to capture a few things with R2-D2.  He is something of a jack-of-all-trades in the Star Wars universe, although he's best known for cracking locks.  Most of his abilities are a result of some gadget or another hidden inside his casing.  From memory, I could think of a buzz saw, an electric zapper, a welding torch, and his booster jets.  So, whatever I chose would have to somehow capture as large a cross-section of those abilities as possible.

The Star Wars character who knows *everything*.

R2-D2, the jack-of-all-trades.

I had originally conceived of making him a Pixie to capture the booster jets, but I did not feel comfortable torquing the Pixie.  Besides, R2-D2 normally only uses his booster jets for brief periods and only rarely.  So, an encounter power would be reasonable enough.  I came across a rather peculiar racial power for Goblins that fit the bill: Leg Up lets a Goblin character adjacent to another creature jump his speed horizontally or 10 feet vertically.  This seemed a perfect match for R2-D2's booster jets.

Thief and wizard were high on my list of classes to use.  However, neither of them quite fit R2-D2 how I thought he should be.  When I started flipping through different classes, I found the Sorcerer to have an array of powers that might fit.  Furthermore, the Storm Sorcerer had a flight ability (on natural 20 attack roll) that also looked good.  So, from that, the Goblin Storm Sorcerer named R2-D2 was born.

I will honestly say that even after I had settled on a Goblin Storm Sorcerer, I still had what was potentially the most difficult challenge yet remaining: an iconic quote.  I spent at least twenty to thirty minutes scouring different websites, trying to find out how his bleeps and bloops are best written.  Unfortunately, I did not find anything that was particularly impressive.  Thus, I stuck with the relatively uninteresting <beep> <beep>. Perhaps I'll touch it up in the future.

People who have read my C-3PO post should already know why it is that R2-D2 is a vampire.  I wanted droids to be modeled after undead.  Radiant damage is ion blast and necrotic damage is more like radioactive damage.  Thus, the natural resistances and vulnerabilities of vampires worked very well.

At some point, I will likely try an alternative R2-D2 build, perhaps using a Pixie with a more wizardly class.  But, for now, R2-D2 is now available to join the rest of the Clone Wars team.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 8)

One thing that I have found in building all of these different Dungeons & Dragons characters is there are a lot of different ways to achieve certain character results. When I wanted to make a Clone Trooper, I wanted a ranged weapon character.  I started with the Ranger (Hunter) as the obvious choice and ended up with Hevy and Jek.  The Archer Warlord was another obvious choice, resulting in Commander Cody.  As I continued to research, I found some classes that seemed less obvious at first but fit well for a character like Captain Rex.  Sometimes, though, it takes me a while to find even the most obvious permutation.

Echo, Defender of Kamino and Rishi Station.

Pretty simple power set.

When I did Hevy, the only "Domino Squad" episode I had seen was the first season episode, Rookies.  I never would have guessed that these clones would appear in later episodes.  When I finally got to season three, I was quite pleased that not only did these clones get a back story (in the episode Clone Cadets), but also a sequel to the original episode where the survivors of Rishi Station return to Kamino. Excepting Cody and Rex, these were the first clones that really stuck out as characters.  It only seemed appropriate that I feature as many of them as I can as Dungeons & Dragons characters.

I made Echo at roughly the same time I did Charon, so the similarities between the two is easy to see.  Like Charon, Echo is a slayer fighter focused on Dexterity and ranged combat.  As a human, Echo got an additional feat.  This allowed the selection of the Greatbow proficiency, giving him enormous range and a higher damage range.  Dealing 1d12 + 10 damage on every hit, Echo is no slouch in the damage dealing department.  I felt like the Poised Assault stance seemed more appropriate for Echo than the Unfettered Fury stance that Charon had as Echo served as a sniper when he helped defend Kamino.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 1) [Alternate Image]

Alternate Image?  It's something I picked up from local game company Flying Frog Productions.  As it ends up, they are not fond of doing special promo cards at trade shows or for pre-orders.  Instead, they like to do alternative images on normal cards.  It makes them unique but not game-changing.

After I did Apollo Justice and a related upcoming card, I thought it appropriate to redo the art on the Miles Edgeworth character card so it matched the style of the other ones.  Hope people like a "matched set" of characters.

Same text as before, new image (mostly with new background)

Still the same Sorcerer-King Warlock we already saw.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 2)

Last week, I finally got around to creating a character from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as a Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters character.  Inspired by my work, I continued crafting characters out of that same framework.  Although practically every character in that game does not fit within the fantasy framework, I found it easier and easier to jam certain characters into certain roles.  Honestly, the further I went it, the more I realized that if they could fit Phoenix Wright into Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, I could fit Phoenix Wright (and friends) into Dungeons & Dragons.

Miles Edgeworth had been a character I had thought about for quite some time.  It only seemed natural for the "Devil Prosecutor" to be a warlock.  It was only a matter of tweaking the pact powers and abilities until I got something that I liked.  Moving on, I felt that the Fey Pact Binder had some utility for adaptation into a Phoenix Wright character as it had the close blast and burst powers that seemed to fit right.  As I already had plans for Phoenix Wright, I tried to think about what other important character would fit this model.  From there, it began to come together.

Phoenix Wright's protégé, Apollo Justice.

Without the Warlock's Curse, there's a lot less going on.

Apollo Justice is an Eladrin Fey Pact Warlock (Binder).  It was a strange thing when the fourth game in the Ace Attorney series involved a completely different character.  Beyond that, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seemed a bit strange, as it featured some of the characters and game concepts introduced in the Nintendo DS only "bonus" level from the first game while introducing a new host of characters and nonsense.  Apollo himself was a different attorney than Phoenix Wright (who, by this point, had been disbarred).  One of the new gameplay elements was the ability to "observe" people as they testified, finding that little feature or twitch that gave away the fact that they were hiding something.  Truth be told, it was aggravating as hell.

All of this felt like it worked, just a bit, into the Fey Pact Binder.  His At-Will attacks fit nicely into the iconic "Objection" and "Hold It" maneuvers of the game while his Encounter power was torqued to feel like Apollo's iconic "Gotcha" mode.  Some of the other abilities and powers required some thought, but this became easy to do once I actually remembered Apollo's story and how he fits within the greater Phoenix Wright universe.

*** MILD SPOILER AHEAD ***

Nonetheless, Apollo was worth conversion in the Dungeons & Dragons model because his mystical bloodline fit well with some of the things that felt otherwise un-lawyerly.  As a decedent of the great magician Magnifi Gramarye, magic was part of his thing.  Rolling him in with the rest of the family of magicians seemed appropriate for his more ridiculous powers, such as the Eladrin Fey Step.  As I proceeded to build other characters from this game, it worked even better as another character could also share in the "Gramarye Bloodline" in a similar way.

*** END SPOILER ***

Hopefully, Apollo Justice can bring something new and interesting your Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters sessions.  He is ridiculous, absurd, but most importantly he is all Essentials.  He should be relatively simple for new players to get into and have fun playing.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 1)

As a gamer of many stripes, I have played a lot of different games.  I have been doing so for the better part of thirty years.  As I have been creating characters for Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters, I have tried to think of iconic, interesting, or just damn awesome figures from games that deserve representation within the framework.  Sometimes, I come up with one, like Leisure Suit Larry, and I find a way to work it into the D&D framework in a way that seems to fit.  In other situations, I sit for months trying to find a way to get it to work, often to no avail.  Occasionally, though, months and months of sitting manifests in ways I never would have imagined.

I started playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney before going to law school.  I used to always insist that I was "training" for my big days as a lofty attorney.  I would never have believed that somebody could make a classic adventure game out of comical parody courtroom drama, but they did.  The characters were ridiculous, entertaining, and all around awesome.  As I fell knee deep into Dungeons & Dragons character development, I felt like I wanted to find a way to capture some of those characters into the D&D game.

The challenge proved harder than I anticipated.  Making Phoenix Wright proved more difficult than I had imagined.  What I wanted was some sort of psychic, ranged defender.  I wanted to find a character that felt like he did what Phoenix Wright did so the re-skinning would be simple.  After months of struggle, I gave up.  But, in that time, something else came to mind.  There was a character, easily captured within the game rules, that I could make.  From that, I began to work.

The fabled "Devil Prosecutor," Miles Edgeworth.

Former student of Manfred von Karma...

When I thought "Miles Edgeworth," I immediately went to "Infernal Pact Warlock."  After a little look at that, I thought that I could do better.  I wanted something that would feel like it came out of the game.  Setting people on fire did not capture the Miles Edgeworth I had hoped for.  As I flipped through the Warlock options, though, I came across the Dark Pact and the Sorcerer-King Pact, both options that could be easily adapted to serve as my favorite prosecutor.  [Author's Note: I did spend two years working at a prosecutor's office and, although I do adore the character Miles Edgeworth, I actually seriously question his effectiveness as a prosecutor.]  After toying with both, the Sorcerer-King Pact seemed like a simpler option for new players and an easier way to capture it into the "Edgeworth" character.

Warlock aficionados will likely detect that I have broken up the Warlock's Curse power into *four* different abilities on the card.  Honestly, that was done to make the Warlock's Curse power more digestible for new players.  It is a huge block of text that is quite confusing for players new and old.  In this format, I had hoped to present it in a way that was functional and easy to understand.  Of course, as I had chosen the Sorcerer-King Pact, I had to introduce a way to track "fell might."  It did not take long to develop and system, though, and from that Miles Edgeworth was born into the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

[Note: I posted an "alternate image" version that matches better with the other Ace Attorney characters presented on this blog.]

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 7)

It is an interesting thing, trying to build specific characters using the mechanical structures of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition. Some characters are extremely easy to build, at least in a basic form. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series has provided quite a stable of adaptable characters. Jedi are generally "some class with a sword" and adapted to fit the style and flavor of a particular character.  The clone troopers have all fallen under a somewhat similar category, being "class with bow/crossbow" and adapted to that end.  Some, on the other hand, are more complicated.  Occasionally, strange character warrant strange mechanics, such as C-3PO as the "lazy Warlord" build.

In some cases, it is just terribly difficult to find something that fits the exact way I feel the character should.  Captain Rex quickly became one of those characters.  He should be simple enough: a clone trooper with two hand blasters.  However, no class within the Fourth Edition framework quite captured this especially well.  I had already done "guy with a handgun" with Resident's Evil's Barry Burton: an Essentials Thief armed with a Hand Crossbow.  My first idea was to replicate that character for Rex but I quickly found that it did not feel right. Eventually, frustration would lead me to examine the Seeker, a generally maligned and ignored class from Player's Handbook 3.  One variant of the Seeker utilized throwing weapons and several of the powers had "Melee or Ranged" capabilities.  After some thought, this seemed like exactly the thing for Captain Rex.  He can fight at range but he does his best work at melee and short range.  That got me started.

The Seeker ended up being a bit more difficult than I would have originally imagined. Despite having throwing weapon powers, the "out of the box" Seeker only has two throwing weapon proficiencies: javelin and dagger.  [Technical Note: The Seeker also has proficiency with a few odd throwing weapons added in later supplements, including the widow's knife and short spear, but I did not count those.]  Neither was especially enthralling of a choice.  I wanted something that could be used one handed but that could be used in a pair, like Rex's Hand Blasters.  I originally considered the Hand Axe or Throwing Hammer, both reasonable choices, but I found taking two weapons did not actually gain anything.  I flirted with a few exotic Dark Sun weapons, but eventually something came to mind: the Net.

Anakin's dependable clone commander, Captain Rex.

Rex is heavy on close-range monster control.

In my research of using Nets, another feat path came up: the Foamgather Heritage feats.  Foamgather Warrior, gave a +1 (untyped) bonus to attacks made with a net.  In addition, it granted use of a special Melee or Ranged net attack which could grab (immobilize) and reposition enemies.  This seemed like a really good choice for Captain Rex, as well.  Not able to decide between the two, I decide to go with both sets of feats (Net Training and the Foamgather feats).Way back in the early days of Fourth Edition (October 2008!), Dragon magazine featured an article on gladiators and gladiatorial combat.  In it, they introduced rules for "iconic" gladiatorial weapons, including Nets, Whips, and Bolas.  As these weapons were all somewhat exotic and generally only powerful within the context of special abilities, they included multi-class paths for gaining proficiency, special abilities, and new powers with specific weapons.  The basic net feat, Net Training, grants proficiency with the Net and the special ability to slow targets with each blow.  That seemed an interesting choice, so I went with it.

As it ends up, this is a character for which a few more levels would yield interesting results.  The two additional feats that would help improve Rex's performance are Flail Expertise, which would give an additional +1 to hit with the next and allow him to prone targets instead of slide them, and Far Throw, which would increase his Ranged capabilities from 2/5 to 4/7.  Honestly, the only concern at that point would be his armor, as he would rely on being "in the mix" to get his controlling done but be susceptible to attack.  Perhaps all he needs is a good defender, like Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker...

Dungeon Gear Solid: Dragon Eater

Occasionally, when I see an inspirational Dungeons & Dragons character, I quickly have an idea of what I *want* to do but, as it ends up, I often have some trouble figuring out how to make that desire a reality. The hand-to-hand expert was the sort of character that did not fit within the original framework of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition.  In fact, for what it is worth, the Dungeons & Dragons game has never been especially good at capturing fisticuffs within its game mechanics.  The Second Edition had an especially strange hand-to-hand combat table but it never felt especially compelling. Of course, various editions had variants of the Monk, but the "punch master" was not quite what I was looking for.

The Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons game had flirted with the idea of an Assassin a few years into the run. When the Essentials line was released, they began play-testing an "Essentials" Assassin, a variant meant to capture more of the iconic, old-school Assassin. When first released, I could not help but think that somebody had really just been praying for a re-imagining of the old First Edition Assassin. It seemed interesting, but I was not sure how I felt about it in play. My biggest concern was how the Poison system would play out. Eventually, the "final" version was released as part of Heroes of Shadow and I began to think about how the class would fit into the overall context of the game. It seemed weird, but it started to seem like something different and interesting. The Assassin used strange weapons and had interesting hand-to-hand abilities that warranted further investigation.

When I began making Dungeons & Dragons character cards for my local D&D Encounters game, I started by trying to find classes that would easily fit into specific, iconic characters. The Red Scales Assassin felt like somebody who I had already seen, an iconic character that needed realization within the Dungeons & Dragons context. I realized that knocking enemies prone, stabbing them with a knife, and choking them from behind fit right into a favorite character of mine... Naked Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. With that in mind, I sat down to the character builder and began working.

CODEC: 140.85

You haven't been practicing your CQC, Snake...

It took me some time figuring out quite how Snake would work within the context of Dungeons & Dragons. The Red Scale Assassin seemed to be near perfect. Garrote attack for a CQC choke. At-will attack that left the enemy prone to represent a CQC body toss. Special knife attacks for using poison. It was just a matter of making it all mesh together properly and naming things such that they felt very ... Snake-like. Honestly, the only thing this character was missing was an absurd array of camouflage to shift between. To be honest, I had half considered making him a Changeling just so I could have an ability that fit with the shifting of camo.

I should make one note about this character for the Fourth Edition rules aficionados out there. I have essentially done away with the garrote, despite it being essential to one of his attacks. The Executioner Assassin has an ability (Quick Swap) that allows him to sheath one weapon and draw another as a Free Action. In addition, Snake has the Master at Arms feat which allows him to sheath one weapon and draw another as a Minor Action. Keeping both of those in mind, I have essentially done away with switching to the garrote as part of Snake's move set. If he wants to choke somebody out (CQC Choke), he does (assuming he meats the hidden requirement). In the context of the character, it works just fine. In the mechanical context, a picky DM can just accept the fact that he is constantly switching his weapons around such that he uses the appropriate weapon for the attack he intends to perform.

Dungeons & Dragons: Yuri's Revenge

When I first started making character cards for Dungeons & Dragons Encounters, I tried to explore character classes that were not well represented within the already existing set of characters.  Specifically, I wanted to make characters that people did not normally play.  The existing cards covered a broad range, but mostly focused on Essentials content.  What I wanted was something ... different.

Psionic characters did not get a lot of love from the D&D community when they first arrived, at least amongst my friends.  As a friend put it, Players Handbook 3 was "holding the Monk hostage."  Eventually, the fact that these classes were different became an interesting thing to explore.  Eventually, these kinds of differences would be made a major design choice as Essentials classes shattered the old mold of At-Will/Encounter/Daily.

As it ends up, I found psionic classes somewhat different to develop for.  They are a bit strange.  I figured the easiest way to make a cool character card for a psionic character was to find some iconic character that was psychic.  After a little thought, I realized that one of my favorite Udo Kier characters would fit the bill nicely.

"Only complete faith in Yuri can protect you."

"Be one with Yuri."

I will admit that I thought Udo Kier did an incredible job playing Yuri in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.  Command & Conquer had been a series that made a name for filming live actors for story sequences, but those "actors" often tended to be design staff.  They kicked it up a notch when they hired James Earl Jones for Tiberian Sun, but they made the mistake of taking themselves too seriously.  Red Alert 2 was done by a team that apparently had very little interest in taking themselves too seriously.  The game's introduction even lets you know it intends to be absurd as it features mind-controlled squid, a mind controlling telephone handset, and giant Soviet zeppelins flying over New York.  Somehow, the over-the-top villain Yuri, special psychic advisor to Soviet Premier Romanov, seemed a perfect match for the kinds of ridiculous pre-made characters I have become fond of building.

Yuri and Stalin.

I originally developed Yuri as one of my early pre-made character cards.  When I went looking for a character race that utilized Intelligence and Charisma, I somehow ended up choosing a Tiefling.  As I recall, I first constructed the character shortly after Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms had been released.  Thus, the original Yuri had some peculiar artifacts from the racial choice (fire resistance, fire reaction attack).  I never liked that and had even re-written his resistance as cold resistance, calling it "Soviet Hardening" or "Soviet Cold Training."  Luckily, Essentials started a way of "upgrading" for all of the races featured in print, which provided a new, better option for our Soviet Supermind: the Kalashtar.

When I went to "touch him up" to throw up on the weblog, I realized that all off the old standard races had been upgraded to feature a choice for attribute bonuses.  Suddenly, the Kalashtar was a good choice as it fit the attributes I was looking for while also granting telepathy and other psychic related abilities.  Thus, the new version of Yuri was born.

The big "trick" with this character card was setting up the Augment powers and the power points.  Power points would prove to be exceptionally easy as I had already done abilities with multiple use blocks.  The augment powers did not end up being especially difficult as I had done something similar of the Monk's Full-Discipline powers.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 1, revisited)

After working through a large number of Dungeons & Dragons characters, I started to rethink a few of my original creations.  Specifically, some of them seemed like they could be done differently or, in a few cases, done a little bit better.  Rather than just go back and replace the old character cards, I thought it would be perfectly acceptable to make a new card representing a different "version" of the iconic character.

The first character I chose for this was Anakin Skywalker.  The reason was not that I had a problem with the original Anakin card I made but that I found a different (arguably, better) character match for Anakin.  I had read a bit on the Berserker class, first presented in Heroes of the Feywild, and I thought it seemed especially appropriate for Anakin.  A defender who can loose her cool and go wild as a striker seemed like an interesting fit for the young Jedi Knight.

A slightly different Anakin Skywalker..

Capturing the Fury in an easy-to-read fashion was tough.

What was most interesting about this was the number of abilities that suspiciously overlapped.  The original character was a Fighter with a Power Strike.  Now, as a Half-Orc, he has almost the same ability.  Thus, to a certain extent, I was able to ground him to the original Anakin Skywalker character I made.To a certain extent, I feel like this Anakin is more like what I expect Anakin to feel like.  In the beginning of battle, he is calm and collected.  He aids his comrades and defends them from attack.  But, once bloodied, the calm and cool Anakin Skywalker goes into his own style of rage, striking his foes with the power of his anger and fury.  Thus, he succumbs just a bit to that Dark Side gnawing away at his soul.

The Berserker is an interesting class.  Starting out as a stalwart defender and then losing it to strike down your foes is an interesting way to work the mechanic.  Unfortunately, it is quite easy to forget things like the AC bonus from the Defender's Aura, which can make him less effective as a defender.  Hopefully, anybody that chooses to use Anakin will not suffer that problem.